New York City's Comptroller just handed every GC in town a free background-check tool — and it's aimed squarely at your subs.

Comptroller Levine's office released the 2026 edition of its Employer Violations Dashboard on September 4, according to the announcement posted at comptroller.nyc.gov. The dashboard is a public, searchable database that tracks companies cited for breaking city and state labor laws — wage theft, prevailing wage shortfalls, and other violations that trigger enforcement action.

Here's why you should care even if you've never had a violation: prevailing wage law and city responsibility reviews already let a bad labor record sink a bid before the number even gets read. Now that record is a click away instead of buried in a court file or a debarment list nobody remembers to check.

Let's say you're a GC lining up subs for a public job next month. Run the short list through the dashboard the same way you'd run a credit check — a citation on that list can cost your sub the job, and it can cost you the schedule if you find out after you've already signed.

And if you're bidding public work yourself, know that agencies are increasingly cross-referencing exactly this kind of list during responsibility determinations. A clean record is free marketing now. A dirty one is a bid you lose before anyone reads your price.

The comptroller's office did not detail in the announcement how many employers currently appear in the 2026 edition or break the count out by industry. Check the live dashboard at comptroller.nyc.gov for the current roster before you rely on it for a bid decision.