Update, 9:36 p.m. The story has been updated to reflect the board’s budget approval. The Orleans Parish School Board approved a near $42 million general fund budget* today, close to a 5 percent decrease since last year. The decrease mainly stems from (1) a drop in expected costs associated with the August merger of McDonogh No. […]
Tag: budget
Posted inCriminal Justice
City still awaiting expert report on criminal-justice financing
Update: Gusman takes responsibility for at least some of the delay. Additions to the original story marked below. A financial expert hired by the city to report on the controversial method the city uses to pay the sheriff’s office appears to have missed its early June deadline. Chief Administrative Officer Andy Kopplin wrote a May […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Government & Politics
Your money, who decides? New Orleanians invited to speak up on budget for next year
By Matt Davis, The Lens staff writer | The New Orleans Coalition on Open Governance is holding a training session for citizens Wednesday to teach them how, when, and where best to speak up so that their voices are included in the city’s budget process, which is already underway. The coalition, of which The Lens […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Environment, Government & Politics
Mixed Council response to Fielkow's request for transparency and an earlier budget start
By Karen Gadbois, The Lens staff writer | City Council members appear to be falling in line in a move toward more transparent and timely budgeting – but not all of them. Last week’s joint meeting of the Criminal Justice and Budget committees was a first of its kind. For as long as anyone can […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Government & Politics
Sheriff headed to court without budget increase
Sheriff Marlin Gusman is threatening to take the city to court unless it pays him 28 percent more money than last year to house New Orleans inmates.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Schools
Unused city money dating to the 1980s raises questions, ire.
The Gert Town pool has sat almost untended since Katrina By Ariella Cohen, staff writer – In the Garden District, a decaying Prytania Street church is on the market for $1.8 million after years of neglect by its owner. In eastern New Orleans, Lincoln Beach lies fallow, tides from Lake Pontchartrain washing over its debris-strewn […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Council delays $600 million spending plan
What does two weeks mean to the city’s recovery four and a half years after Katrina? A whole lot – if you ask the Nagin administration. Or at least that was the argument made by Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Cynthia Sylvain-Lear at a City Council meeting Thursday. Sylvain-Lear was attempting (unsuccessfully) to convince the council […]