Bill Henry
For the first time in more than two decades, Baltimore has a new city comptroller.
In a 2020 city election upset, Bill Henry defeated incumbent Joan Pratt, who had been the city’s fiscal watchdog for 25 years. With a new officeholder comes new ideas and a new direction for the city comptroller’s office, which oversees fiscal management of the city, including audits, real estate and communications systems such as phones. The comptroller also has a voting seat and serves as secretary on the Board of Estimates, which is the city’s spending panel.
A three-term city councilmember from the 4th District who helped shepherd recently-passed reforms to the structure of city government (and took to TikTok to explain them), Henry campaigned on a pledge to modernize the office and bring transparency. He won the Democratic primary in June, and did not face a general election opponent. He was sworn in on December 8, 2020. A couple of weeks later, we chatted about the current state of the comptroller’s office, where he wants it to go and how data and IT may help to get there. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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