NEW ORLEANS — The City of New Orleans expects to lose around $130 million this year in tax revenue due to event cancellations and business closures during the coronavirus pandemic.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano laid out the current plan, including cost-cutting measures and borrowing $100 million to ensure public services are not shut down.
According to a presentation given to reporters, the city is currently preparing to address a $130 million budget shortfall.
“What we’re looking at right now is very similar to what New Orleans saw post-Katrina as far as GDP drop," Montano said, showing a timeline of the city's GDP over the past two decades.
Cantrell's administration will present their analysis to the City Council on Tuesday, May 5, and request access to $100 million in bonds to keep city services steady as sales taxes slowdown.
"We're not facing this with the thought of the cavalry coming from the federal government," Cantrell said. "But more of wanting to save ourselves. And come up with a strategy that we could deploy and we could have confidence in, that we could remain financially stable and sound."
The City is also looking at several cost-cutting measures including offering early retirement to some employees, renting and selling city-owned buildings, cutting contracts, a hiring freeze and furloughing employees.
Montano said that cuts to sanitation contracts are already underway, including moving garbage pickup in the French Quarter to one day a week.
"Nothing is going to be left off the table," Cantrell said. "We are looking at cost-cutting strategies to implement as we look forward to moving this city forward."
Another contract being looked as is parking enforcement and red light cameras. With fewer people on the streets, it makes sense to shrink those programs as well, Montano said.
These numbers aren't final. Montano noted that the information is incomplete and the situation changes as New Orleans' recovery from COVID-19 and the Stay at Home order changes.
"Everything is unaudited and in some cases hypothesis based," Montano said.
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