City Comptroller Scott Stringer is emerging as the most high-profile critic of Mayor Bill de Blasio among local Democrats. He is taking aim at the mayor's budget, his response to homelessness and his jobs plan. But at least for now, it still seems unlikely that Stringer will actually challenge him in the race for mayor. Our Grace Rauh has the story.

Just two days after Mayor de Blasio announced that the city intends to create 100,000 jobs that pay at least $50,000 a year over the next decade, the second-highest-ranking official in New York trashed the move.

"I don't think people truly understood what he was talking about," Stringer said. "Because, no plan. No timetable for a plan."

The mayor has been light on details about his jobs program. A new film and fashion center in Sunset Park is projected to produce 1,500 jobs. And the city plans to count jobs created through economic development projects already underway — like the Brooklyn Navy Yard — toward its total.

"It's just an empty promise and it's certainly not enough," Stringer said.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer's comments came as he delivered his assessment of the mayor's $85 billion budget proposal. Stringer says it is short on savings. He says city agencies need to cut back more. Under de Blasio they have trimmed far smaller shares of their budgets compared to the Bloomberg era.

We have to be more proactive today so we can protect our citizens years from now.

Then there is the mayor's handling of the city's record-breaking homeless crisis.

"The crisis is growing," Stringer said. "It is not receding."

More than 60,000 people are sleeping in city shelters and in hotels, with the city footing the bill.

The city's reliance on commercial hotels to house our homeless population is truly out of control.

The mayor's press secretary said: "The comptroller has criticized universal pre-K, equipping officers with body cameras, unprecedented highs in affordable housing and job creation, a balanced budget with record savings, and sweeping investments in homelessness prevention. City Hall shares the public’s wonderment at what exactly the Comptroller's fighting for."

Stringer's tough talk may be the groundwork for a mayoral campaign challenging de Blasio, or a sign that he is embracing his role as a check on City Hall.