Landrieu depending on furlough-averse City Council to balance this year’s budget

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s plan to balance this year’s budget relies on the cooperation of the City Council, which has already voiced serious opposition to one of his moves: furloughing city employees.

In seeking approval of this year’s budget, former Ray Nagin asked the council to approve a plan requiring city employees to take 12 unpaid days off this year. The council balked, forcing Nagin to make other cuts. Now Landrieu wants employees to take 11 days off in the next five months.

The council will not have a say in Landrieu’s furlough decision, though the Civil Service Commission needs to give its consent. Nor will the council be able to weigh in on the mayor’s cost cutting measures.

But it will have to approve Landrieu’s request to use $23.2 million from an insurance settlement for operating expenses this year. That’s a third of the projected $67 million budget gap.

The furlough is expected to save $6.7 million.

No council members could be reached for comment. Council President Arnie Fielkow, who is out of the country, released a statement saying the council is working with Landrieu to solve the budget gap “with minimum impact on our employees.”

In an e-mail releasing the statement, Fielkow’s communications director, Danielle A. Viguerie, wrote that Fielkow’s statement was vague because “we are not really endorsing the Mayor’s proposal.”

In fighting with Nagin last year, council members said they didn’t think it was proper to balance the city’s budget on the backs of municipal employees.

Some of the money from the insurance settlement was for  city buildings. The mayor did not elaborate on how diverting the cash to fill the budget hole would affect work on those properties.

Landrieu also announced other cost-cutting measures that include stricter management of overtime, adherence to the 2010 budget for pensions, renegotiations of contracts and renegotiations of the city’s pension and healthcare plans.

“This is not a proud moment for New Orleans,” Landrieu said. He characterized the unsavory situation as having to make a decision between two very bad choices.

All city employees will begin taking one furlough day per two-week pay period until the end of the year, saving the city $6.7 million. That amounts to a 10 percent cut to their remaining pay, Landrieu said. Landrieu and his top staff also will take a 10 percent cut the rest of the year.

Overtime will be significantly reduced through better management of schedules for all city departments. This measure, coupled with leaving open positions unfilled, is projected to save the city $8.8 million, according to a press release from the mayor’s office.

Contract renegotiations and cuts are projected to save the city $8.8 million. A spokesman for the mayor said Thursday that the legal work associated with rewriting contracts  has not yet been completed. Public Works will fund $1.2 million worth of projects from the capital budget, which is separate from the operating budget and designated for bricks-and-mortar projects.

NOPD might need consultant for password management

With the city on track to blow out its budget by $67 million this year, it’s obvious that some departments have been a little loose with their spending.

But going over budget by 2,464 percent? And only halfway through the year?

Really?

That’s the rate of overspending on the line-item for consultants by the New Orleans Police Department.

The department had allocated $188,920 to pay for consulting for 2010, but it has already spent a whopping $4.7 million as of the end of June.

What’d they spend it on? Good question.

The Lens put in a public-records request Monday (Note: an earlier version of this story incorrectly said the request was submitted Friday) for all NOPD consulting contracts, but the city finance department can’t get to the information. That’s because Kirk Mathis, the fiscal manager of the NOPD budget office, said his password to the necessary database has expired.

Really?

Legislators seek transparency from BP but feel snubbed

Two state lawmakers who persuaded the Legislature to call for BP to provide full access to its oil-spill information now say they’re frustrated with the oil giant’s continued lack of compliance.

Leger

Richmond

The state House and Senate in June unanimously passed House Concurrent Resolution 208, sponsored by New Orleans Democratic Reps. Walter Leger III and Cedric Richmond.

Though it doesn’t have the force of law, the measure asks that BP provide researchers, news media and the general public with all of its scientific data on the spill, particularly the rate of flow.

A BP spokesman says the company is doing the best it can to get information to the public, but the bill’s authors aren’t convinced.

“It seems to me that they continue to have a difficult time in providing accurate information, and it’s difficult for me to believe that with the level of scientific expertise at their disposal that they can’t provide that information,” Leger said in an interview this week.

Leger said that one of the environmental scientists reporting to him claimed that analysis and other data provided by BP were dated, incomplete or inaccurate. Leger declined to say who that scientist is.

“It leads one to believe that they’re choosing not to provide that information,” Leger said.

BP spokesman John Curry said BP is “doing everything we possibly can to be as transparent as possible.”

He said that data requests are pouring in and that BP is trying its best to keep up.

Richmond bemoaned the fact that there’s no way to substantiate the information they do get.

“We’re taking notice of the information they’re telling us and we’re trying to fact check it,” he said. “The unfortunate thing is that we have no way to independently verify that they are giving us all of the accurate information or not –   at least as they give it to us.”

Leger does not limit his skepticism to scientific data. He said he questions BP’s information on claims submitted by businesses for losses, as well as the depth and breadth of damage to wildlife.

“It’s this kind of continued lack of transparency and willingness to provide less than the whole picture to the public through the media that, I think, continues to cast a shadow of doubt on the entire process,” he said.

Karl Connor, government affairs director for BP America, said that the issue of transparency arose during a hearing with the Louisiana House Natural Resources Committee in mid-June, where legislators asked for specific information about the oil dispersant Corexit, which is produced by the Nalco Holding Company.

BP executives said such information is proprietary and that it couldn’t release the information.

The Legislature’s resolution urges BP to publish information on its website on when, where, what and how much dispersant is being released into the Gulf of Mexico.

“We have from the beginning said that we are the responsible party under the OPA [Oil Pollution Act of 1990] and that we will do everything that we’re supposed to do until the job is completely done – until every drop of oil is gone and people are made whole for all legitimate claims,” Connor said.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was passed in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. It requires the party responsible for the spill pay for its cleanup and certain damages.