The New Orleans City Council kicked off the first day of its 2025 city budget hearings today (Oct. 8), hearing presentations from the Department of Finance and the city Chief Administrative Office on their annual goals and budgets, as well as updates on millages.

A key theme throughout the first day was the need for the city to recruit, hire and retain more workers. The city has for years been losing personnel in key departments, notably including the New Orleans Police Department — which has fewer than 900 officers, down from about 1,200 in 2018 when Mayor LaToya Cantrell took office — and the Department of Public Works, which has fewer maintenance workers than the much smaller St. Bernard Parish, The Times-Picayune reported earlier this year.

In total, there are nearly 200 vacancies in the city’s budgeted workforce, according to a staffing report presented to the council in August, with more than 20 city agencies reporting at least one. 

“We’ve seen many of our employees go on to more lucrative employment,” Romy Schofield-Samuel, director of the Department of Finance, said during her department’s presentation. As of the August report, the department reported an 11% vacancy rate, 13 full-time employees short of its full budget. “We need to stay on pace with competitors and other employers because of the cost of living in the city. We’ve lost several auditors, which are revenue generating positions. We’ve also lost clerical staff.”

The call for the city to fund new positions or pay increases for existing staff was echoed by Ronda Ellen at the Office of Supplier Diversity and Amy Trepagnier, director of the Civil Service Commission. 

“We did put in a request for $123,000 in different promotions but it is not included here because the administration did not approve it,” Trepagnier said. “But I do want to strongly advocate for funding promotions. […] We always talk about how difficult it is to fill positions but the second piece of that is really doing what is easy in order to retain the people that we do have.”

Last week, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño unveiled their proposed $1.78 billion 2025 budget. That budget included cuts to most departments, with the stated goal of “right-sizing” departmental budgets.  

Montaño was recently implicated in the federal indictment of Randy Farrell, the owner of a building inspection firm, who was charged for providing Cantrell thousands of dollars in gifts, allegedly as part of an attempt to convince the mayor to fire an employee in the Department of Safety & Permits. Neither Cantrell nor Montaño has been charged with a crime. 

While Montaño appeared before the council on Tuesday, he spoke only sparingly, deferring to other officials in his office in response to questions from council members.

The council has scheduled additional budget hearings through the beginning of November. It must pass a final city budget by Dec. 1. 

Early childhood millage one year on: ‘monumental

Two dozen early childcare educators and advocates also appeared at Tuesday’s hearing to support and celebrate of the impacts of the city’s early childhood education millage, which took effect last year.

In 2022, New Orleans voters approved an approximately $20 million millage to support free and reduced-cost early childhood education across the city. Millage collection went into effect in January 2023, and the program began in July 2023. 

The millage has directly funded 1,000 seats at early childcare centers across the city, and the city has used the money to leverage additional state funds. More than 2,000 children ages 0 to 3 now have access to free early childhood education, up from about 800 in 2022 and about 200 in 2020. 

“No other city, no other state, is doing what New Orleans is doing,” said Kristi Givens, who owns three childcare centers in the city. She pointed to the positive impact the funding for early childcare centers has had not just on children, but also on childcare workers, who are guaranteed a minimum income of $15,50, and parents, who can reliably go to work.

Michelle Wilcox, a fellow early childhood education center owner, said this access to childcare helped parents reliably show up for work or have support to start their own businesses.  

“There’s no economy without early childhood education,” Wilcox said. “This millage is monumental.”

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Katie Jane Fernelius reports on the local government for Verite. Prior to joining Verite, she was an independent journalist and producer. Over the course of her career, she’s reported for and worked...