Meanwhile at the Convention Center

Quick addendum to the city budget discussion from this week. That process involved some heated discussions, anxiety, and even threats resulting in cuts to some departments so that we could afford to hire more police.  But was any of this necessary? When we look over at the Convention Center's finances, we do have to wonder.

As usual, the convention center expects to have a budget surplus in 2020. Next year the center will get $18.7 million more than what it needs to operate, according to budget documents presented to the authority. That’s in large part due to the $66.4 million in tax revenue — mostly from hotel taxes — that the Convention Center expects to haul in for 2020.

The much celebrated "Fair Share" deal that permits this to go on is a complete fraud. Unless we are able to get that point across, it will only serve to set back progress in the continuing fight to get these oligarchs to pay what they owe.  Until that happens, prepare to watch public money which could go to relieve fiscal dilemmas like the one we just experience be used, instead, to pay prison labor contractors.  

Also on Wednesday, it was revealed that the convention center has gone forward with a $183,000 purchase for an iron fence from Prison Enterprises — a division of the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections that sells services and products manufactured and provided by Louisiana prison inmates.