Funding

The New Orleans City Council discussed Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s 2025 budget on how the city should spend $1.8 billion. The mayor said the proposal aims to combat aid disappearing from the pandemic and rising costs.How the budget process works is the mayor and CAO present the proposed budget, but the City Council will debate it and could even reshape the budget in the coming weeks. One of the concerns starting from Day 1 is the cuts to Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement.According to the mayor’s initial budget proposal presentation, Safety and Permits’ budget is getting lowered by 45% and Code Enforcement by 45%.”Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement check all of those boxes, and you see that they have a 40% or 45% reduction in their budget that sends up a lot of red flags,” said City Council budget chair Joe Giarrusso. Giarrusso says it’s something they will be taking up Friday because the numbers aren’t adding up.”Code Enforcement side, Cassie they’re really doing a good job right now,” said Giarrusso. “So we want them to continue to really do the work that they are doing. In the Safety and Permit side, it’s about those efficiencies, making sure things are running very smoothly.”After reaching out to the mayor’s office, WDSU Investigates was told the numbers in the presentation were not accurate as there was missing data when it was put together. The office said it would only be a 4% and 5% decrease. Statement from the city: “The 2025 Executive Budget presentation (which noted a 40% reduction) only included General Fund and Priority Multi-Year Project appropriations for Departments, not all funding sources. Both Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement receive significant funding from Special Funds, namely the Interim Short Term Rental Fund and the Housing and Environmental Improvement Fund which were not included in the comparison made in the presentation. “The $3.7M in general fund and priority multi-year project reductions for Safety and Permits are due to a (1) reduction in one-time funding ($2M for staff augmentation), (2) a reduction of $100K for central adjudication related expenses (moved to another cost center in CAO), and (3) $331,038 for lease payments (moved to another cost center in Property Management). The remaining general fund reduction in Safety and Permits is related to general fund positions being moved to special funds. The positions have not been removed from the budget, just changed to a different, non-general fund funding source.”The Administration remains committed to funding all infrastructure, public safety, and operational departments, including Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement, and this will remain our priority.”However, in order to provide a fiscally responsible Executive Budget to the Council at this period in the year, departments citywide had to absorb some amount of reduction based on previous year spending (meaning, not all departments spend their entire budget each year). Importantly, we have told all departments to work with us throughout the year to make sure that these reductions do not negatively impact or reduce their operations, especially those operational and public safety departments (specifically Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement). Notably, requests by safety and permits and code enforcement for hires, historically and currently, have and will be approved. The same will continue in 2025.”When considering all funds, Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement budgets were reduced 6.03% and 5.13% respectively from 2024. However, to reiterate, should these agencies need additional funding, it will be provided as it would be with public safety agencies. Both Departments were also granted staffing increases in 2025, with 29 new positions in Safety and Permits and 24 in Code Enforcement.”This comes as controversy surrounds Cantrell and CAO Montano after inspector Randy Farrell was indicted. That indictment alleges he gave Cantrell and Montano Saints and LSU football tickets to influence the leaders to fire a Safety and Permits employee who was investigating Farrel.This was even alluded to in the budget presentations with the mayor calling the indictment allegations accusations and Montano stating this is a challenging time for him, but he is committed to the budget. On Friday, the budget hearing for Safety and Permits and Code Enforcement will take place. Dec. 1 is when the council will have to approve the final budget.