Budget Party Day One

It's been a few months now and I'm still not sure what to make of this Monatno guy.  I wasn't encouraged from what I had read of his time in Albuquerque where the first things that stood out were a penchant for downsizing and an interest in "predictive policing" algorithms. I was slightly more concerned when it looked like he was advocating stop and frisk cops as a revenue generating replacement for traffic cameras. But we really can't judge the CAO until we see what his budget proposal looks like. And that's what this month's city council hearings are all about.  So let's see what we've learned on day one.

The fissures between Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration and the New Orleans City Council became more evident as the two sides sparred over funding and revenues on Friday during the first hearing on next year’s budget.

Council members sharply criticized Cantrell’s inaugural spending plan, arguing it should have included more money for catch basin cleaning and questioning whether a proposal make traffic tickets more expensive bucked a trend locally and nationwide to move away from heft penalties for minor offenses.

Uh oh. That sounds like Montano's budget is going to prioritize writing more parking tickets over cleaning out storm drains. That can't possibly be right. In addition to being a retrograde and regressive means of using law enforcement power to extort money out of poor people, it's also incredibly  politically insensitive. 

Councilmembers were, rightfully skeptical. Their questions elicited strange responses, though. 

Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño said it’s possible the administration could shift more money to Public Works in the middle of next year, but that before he provides more money to the department he wants a more thorough review of its costs.

"I think a lot of these problems came from just throwing money at it and hope that it gets done," Montaño said.

"But money is a resource you need to solve a problem," Giarrusso said.

I'm starting to think Montano has a fundamental disagreement with councilmembers about what's going on here.  Giarrusso assumes the budget process is about allocating resources in ways that best meet the needs of the citizenry.  Montano derides that basic governmental function as "throwing money at" those needs.

This has all the look of that old "run government like a business" canard we thought we had finally thrown off when Ray Nagin's "business-oriented" administration proved out to be teeming with grifters. But here we are again.  Montano hasn't said this explicitly, but he sure sounds like he wants to spend money only when its purpose is to make money back. Councilmembers are correct to question these priorities.

Several council members said it was particularly tone deaf for the administration to leave the catch basin funding flat even as the department beefed up the number of parking enforcement officers who ticket illegally parked vehicles.

“It’s sending a bizarre message out there because I think the priority to the public has always been on the catch basin side,” Councilwoman Helena Moreno said.

Tone deaf.  It hasn't even been a year but that phrase does come up a lot in reference to the way this administration conducts itself.  I wonder how often we're going to use extortion as well. 

Another revenue plan announced at the meeting raised more eyebrows.

The budget projects the city will bring in $500,000 more from traffic tickets next year. That money would come from instructing New Orleans Police Department officers to issue tickets under state law, rather than the city ordinances that have lower fines.

So on Day One of the budget process we're already starting to confirm some of our worst concerns about the Cantrell governing philosophy.  Her CAO is hesitant to fund essential services and eager to use police powers to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of the citizen customer.  But, hey, it's only the beginning. Maybe things will look better when we start talking about crime cameras