New Orleans city agencies are pushing back against Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s proposed 2025 budget, saying the mayor’s proposal — which includes funding cuts for most departments — will prevent them from hiring and retaining the employees necessary to do their work.
Requests for more money – and more employees – were a consistent theme last week, the first week of departmental budget hearings before the New Orleans City Council. At the start of the month, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño announced major cuts across the proposed $1.78 billion 2025 budget.
The Cantrell administration’s proposed general fund budget, which is made up of locally generated revenues such as taxes, fines and fees — as opposed to federal or state grant funds — is about $776 million. During his budget presentation, Montaño acknowledged that arriving at that number meant offering many departments far less than what they requested.
“There was approximately $900 million of asks from our departments – and I won’t even say asks — needs, legitimate and vital needs from our departments,” Montaño said. That means the proposal is about $124 million short of departmental requests.
Among the 38 city departments that receive general fund money, 23 are facing cuts — ranging from about 3% to about 45% — from their 2024 general fund budgets. In some cases, such as the Department of Safety & Permits and the Department of Code Enforcement, which face the largest general fund decreases, much of that funding will be made up of non-general fund sources, according to the budget proposal. But they will still be in the red next year if the council passes Cantrell’s proposal.
Typically there is little variance between the mayor’s proposed budget and the final budget as passed by the City Council. But Councilmember Joe Giarrusso, who chairs the budget committee, said the council will vet the proposal — and question departmental officials — to determine whether to make any changes.
“I usually take the position that any department or agency wants more than what their assigned budget is supposed to be,” Councilmember Joe Giarrusso told Verite News. “I think where the council is looking is what is the request in light of what the need is, and how do we balance those things.”
‘Thank you for being honest’
In his Friday (Oct. 11) presentation before the council, Karl Fasold, executive director of the Orleans Parish Communication District asked for the city to kick in about $18.7 million to the agency budget — about $2.3 million more than what the administration is offering — to cover staffing and overtime costs at the city’s 911 call center.
Fasold noted that the administration’s proposal didn’t account for newly hired positions in the department, which have helped the agency work to meet its full staffing requirements.
“Those vacancies are no longer vacant and will not be vacant, and I do not have any savings or backup funding to pay those positions,” Fasold said. “So, if you can’t adjust the budget back to what we requested, then I will have to lay off some of those new people in January.”
Concerns over the Orleans Parish Communication District’s budget have come up repeatedly at Council over the past year.
In July 2023, Fasold took over after Tyrell Morris resigned amid a scandal after he crashed a department vehicle and failed to submit to a drug and alcohol screening. But Fasold said that Morris also misrepresented the financials of OPCD, leading to depleted staff and revenue – the repercussions of which Fasold has said he continues to deal with.
Most recently, last month, the department asked City Hall for $3 million to cover pensions for its employees. Fasold blamed the deficit on poor budgeting by his predecessor Tyrell Morris, who, he said, spent down reserves and grossly overestimated revenue. Morris denied this.
“Thank you for being honest and not just going with what the administration tells you to put there,” Councilmember Lesli Harris said to Fasold during the Friday budget presentation.
Fasold also pointed to recent successes with his office: Since August, the department has increased the percentage of calls it is answering in less than fifteen seconds to well over 90%, which is the National Emergency Number Association’s most current standard. This is an increase since Verite News previously reported in June that the agency was failing to meet its own call-time standards.
“The culture has changed,” Fasold said. “Our employees are working hard. They’re hitting the calls faster. Our supervisors are jumping in and grabbing them. There’s a different feel on the floor.”
Orleans Parish Coroner Dwight McKenna on Friday asked for an increase of about $566,000 to fund more staff, including death investigators, which he said are desperately needed. McKenna made a similar request last year but was ultimately denied.
Verite News previously reported that revenues are substantially down in the Coroner’s Office as it has declined to do out-of-parish autopsies — once a major source of revenue — because it does not have enough death investigators. When McKenna took office in 2018, the office generated over $200,000 in revenue from performing out-of-parish autopsies. Last year, it generated a little over $12,000 in revenue from out-of-parish autopsies.
This year, McKenna bluntly stated his case again.
“Our critical issue is that within our budget right now, we have one investigator for the entire city per shift; that doesn’t work,” McKenna said. He said he wants to increase the capacity of the office by hiring two new death investigators, two transport drivers, three administrative staffers and one autopsy assistant.
“We need $566,000 to give you, I think, the kind of service you would love for us to be able to give to you,” McKenna said.
The council seemed to indicate that it might be open to increasing McKenna’s budget despite rejecting a similar request last year.
“Dr McKenna, you’ve asked almost every year that I’ve been here and that you’ve been elected,” Giarrusso said at the hearing. “I think we’re going to have to start honoring some of this because a lot of other agencies are going up this year, but you’ve been kept flat, and that’s a concern for me.”
Earlier in the week, representatives from the Department of Finance, the Office of Supplier Diversity and the Civil Service Commission all made similar requests for more money, particularly emphasizing the need to increase pay for existing city employees in order to prevent them from leaving.
“We need to stay on pace with competitors and other employers because of the cost of living in the city,” Romy Schofield-Samuel, director of the Department of Finance, said during her presentation.
That point was echoed by Amy Trepagnier, director of the Civil Service Commission.
“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,” she said.
Public budget hearings will continue through early November. The council will have until Dec. 1 to make any changes to the mayor’s proposed budget and pass a final budget for next year.
“I don’t see the council going in and saying we’re going to reorganize this billion dollars in another way, but for agencies and departments that we think are understaffed or need additional resources, we will recommend tweaking,” Giarrusso told Verite News.