The New Orleans City Council declined to provide millions in additional funding Friday (Dec. 1) for the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office and Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office as part of its vote to approve the city’s $1.57 billion 2024 operating budget. 

The decision to keep the agencies at the funding levels recommended by Mayor LaToya Cantrell in her October budget proposal came in spite of pleas from Sheriff Susan Hutson and DA Jason Williams for additional funds, saying that a significant bump in their 2024 budgets was necessary to pay for and hire additional staff and, as a result, improve public safety.

Councilmembers voted to largely stick to Cantrell’s proposal, which provided $9.6 million to Williams and $55.7 million to Hutson. Williams had asked for a nearly 50% increase while Hutson requested an additional 21%.The only departure the council took from those funding levels was not an increase, but a cut. 

Councilmembers Helena Moreno and Joe Giarrusso said that the sheriff’s office failed to provide details on several of its requests, which made approval difficult. For that reason, Moreno proposed an amendment, which passed unanimously, that stripped $500,000 from a “special projects fund” in Hutson’s budget.  

Moreno said she requested additional information about the fund from the sheriff but never received a response. Should the sheriff provide the requested information, the council will return the money to the budget.

“It’s very tough as the appropriating body when people fly the flag of safety

and want to make you scared that if you don’t provide money bad things are going to happen, but then don’t let you inside to look at their budgets to see what the case is,” Giarrusso said.

Hutson made her plea for more money weeks earlier during council budget hearings, telling councilmembers that a pre-existing staffing shortfall had been made worse by a larger and more violent population in the Orleans Justice Center. 

She estimated that her office is operating at 60% of ideal staffing levels, while the number of inmates has increased by 25% compared to the same time last year. During that same period, the number of resident-on-resident altercations increased to 336 last year from 179 the year before.

Hutson proposed a $2 hourly increase to the wages for deputies, which would bring entry-level deputies in line with the national average of $20 per hour. If she could accomplish that, Hutson said she would be able to hire at least 100 more people in the coming year, helping to chip away at an estimated staffing shortage of 282 people.

Despite the council’s decision not to approve the additional funds, Hutson said she still believes she will be able to pay for a wage increase. In 2022, after the council made clear it would reject her request for an additional $12 million for the 2023 budget, Hutson said she received a verbal agreement from the city and council saying she could move forward with a $2.43 wage increase, which brought the hourly rate to $18. The city then provided her with additional money that helped pay for the increase.

This year’s wage bump helped the sheriff’s office hire an additional 103 employees, including about 70 deputies, Hutson said.

Williams did not respond to a request for comment. During his proposed budget hearing, he said the additional money was needed to pay, in part, for new employees hired throughout the year. 

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Experienced investigative reporter Rich Webster joins Verite after spending the past two and a half years as a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. He investigated allegations of abuse against...