Also at Thursday’s budget hearing, the Orleans Public Defender’s Office advocated for greater funding, saying their current budget isn’t enough to end a year-long hiring freeze.
Earlier this year, officials asked for as many as 16 new STR enforcement employees. That later went down to three. Emails show that top-ranking officials were nervous about how new enforcement rules would affect city tax revenue.
The state’s TOPS scholarship program and state budget formulas handicap less-advantaged students and colleges, and it’s a national trend.
New Beginnings voted to surrender its two charter schools at the end of this year after graduation problems at John F. Kennedy High School.
Council members again ask if citywide property tax increases are necessary.
An agreement is reached for a new hotel at the Convention Center, two charter schools are expected to get a failing rating and have their charter removed, and the Coalition Against Death Alley marches to Baton Rouge to protest a Formosa plastics plant.
The civil district court judge also dismissed the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, leaving the Louisiana Department of Education and Kennedy’s charter group, New Beginnings.
By voting in support of the dismissal of municipal and traffic warrants, fines and fees, the New Orleans City Council created an opening for more than forty-thousand New Orleanians to escape a vicious cycle of poverty and incarceration. By coming together to imagine a more just criminal legal system, our city is positioned to jump from being the target of civil rights lawsuits to being a leader in reform.
A proposed $1 million against the company also moves on to the full council.
