N.O.’s Inspector General announces retirement
25th September 2017 · 0 Comments
Just weeks after announcing that he will oversee the repair of the city’s catch basins in the wake of two floods this summer, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux announced last week that he is retiring from this post and will not serve a third term, according to a statement released by his office.
Quatrevaux, a New Orleans native whose current term ends on October 19, said he will “explore retirement for a third time.”
“Since 2009 the OIG drove dramatic improvements at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and the New Orleans Police Department and exposed the dysfunction at the Sewerage and Water Board.
“My vision is a New Orleans in which all citizens trust the OIG to ensure the integrity of local government and to provide credible and reliable information about government performance. To that end, I had planned to assist in the transition to new leadership,” Quatrevaux said in a statement.
During Quatrevaux’s tenure as inspector general, he helped to root out more than $95 million in waste, according to the OIG website.
He took the job in 2009 and quickly began to focus on inefficiencies in local government.
The office’s audits over the $25 million in contract waste at the airport. His two terms helped to identify more thane uncovered millions in standby and overtime spending that could be cut from the Sewerage & Water Board. He also helped to create reforms at the New Orleans Police Department by recommending more officers leave the desk and respond to calls on the streets.
Quatrevaux’s reports also helped create meaningful reforms in the police department after identifying under reported sex crimes. At one point, Quatrevaux disputed claims of the NOPD enduring a manpower shorting and recommended that the embattled police department, which in the midst of a federally mandated consent decree which began in August 2013, hire civilians to perform various office duties to free up police officers to patrol the streets of New Orleans.
Quatrevaux was involved in a very public war of words with Independent Police Monitor Susan Hutson, which ended when Hutson was granted the right to no longer fall under the administrative umbrella of the Office of the Inspector General.
This past summer, the Office of the Inspector General aired a television commercial about the contributions and successes of Quatrevaux that prompted some residents to wonder whether the inspector general might be in the early stages of planning to run for an elected office.
Despite that speculation, Quatrevaux reportedly decided in July that he would server for a third term, citing health reasons.
The Ethics Review Board had hoped to have a new inspector general in place before Quatrevaux’s retirement next month but recently extended its search for a new IG beyond the Aug. 19 deadline it set this summer.
The office now will monitor the city’s $22 million catch basin cleaning project.
Quatrevaux has been asked to assist in vetting and interview prospective replacements to take over when he completes his second term next month.
This article originally published in the September 25, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
