Cantrell’s paradigm shift is paying off
23rd December 2019 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
While handling a cyber attack that downed city computers, Mayor LaToya Cantrell last week spoke of the challenges and opportunities faced by her administration in 2019. In less than two years on the job, the city’s first female mayor and first African-American woman to hold the position, is taking giant steps in addressing the residents’ and city’s infrastructure needs.
As she relates the problems that cropped up and how she handled them, it’s clear that Mayor Cantrell’s solutions led to several firsts for her fledging administration. In effect, Cantrell created a paradigm shift in the way the city conducts business. Spending six years on the New Orleans City Council gave Cantrell hands-on experience with local, state, and national politics. Cantrell’s overall strategic approach for addressing the city’s problems was to govern from a strength-based position with diplomacy and accountability.
Determined to get a fair share of the tax revenues collected in the city, Cantrell petitioned the state for tax revenues to repair New Orleans’ 110-year-old drainage system and pumps, which have caused street flooding during hard rains, and damage to businesses and residences. Cantrell restructured the Sewerage & Water Board and demanded accountability from the utility’s leadership. She also sought revenues for street repairs, affordable housing, bridges and city buildings.
Cantrell pulled together a delegation of citizens, business owners and elected representatives who lobbied the state. As a result, a revenue-sharing deal was struck among state-owned entities, including the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District and others, to gives New Orleans a fair share of the tax revenues collected from tourists, residents, companies and workers in the Crescent City.
Cantrell also asked the state to ensure that the Exhibition Hall Authority fulfills its agreement to provide surplus funds to the city, as agreed to when New Orleans agreed to suspend collecting one percent of hotel tax revenue (dubbed the ‘Lost Penny’ in a BGR report), so that the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center could be built.
“We were able to deliver heavily for infrastructure resources,” says Cantrell. The delegation’s effort netted $202 million over the next five years for infrastructure, S&WB and the Department of Public Works. With $2 billion in federal funds, $50 million already set-aside for infrastructure, $25 million in bond sales, $500 million in anticipated revenues from three of the infrastructure proposals passed by voters during the gubernatorial primary, Cantrell is moving the needle for addressing the city’s infrastructure woes.
Rather than business as usual, Cantrell’s administration worked in 2018 to restructure the city’s finances, with a primary focus on consolidation, data sharing, technology and saving money.
In 2018, Cantrell’s administration purchased cybersecurity insurance. It was the first time in the city’s history that cybersecurity insurance became a line item in the administration’s budget, and it proved to be a prescient move on the administration’s part. Currently, systems that were cyber-attacked are being restored but also most of the administration’s important documents are safe in protected software.
In June, BRASS (Budget, Requisition, Accounting, Services, System) came online to help departments see the universe of what is happening in the city’s procurement, contracting, grants, revenue and sales tax collection, billing, payroll and other financial processes.
“BRASS coordinates budgets, data, and allows for better accountability and management for our department heads,” says Cantrell. “This was supposed to have been done 10 years ago,” she adds.
Restructuring capital outlay and aligning them with city priorities, CEAs with the state to use tax revenues as they are paid, a $25 million investment in affordable housing, $22 million in resurfacing and street repairs on Bourbon Street and Marconi Drive made Cantrell’s to do list this year.
The administration also devised and put into effect a plan to retain police academy graduates. “We pay our recruits and, if you join, you must give two years of service. We’re growing the department.” The administration also invested $6 million in the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center and $1.5 million in the city’s Office of Families and Youth to address juvenile crime and delinquency.
This year, the administration also consolidated the functions of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, the New Orleans & Company (formerly the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau) and the Multicultural Tourism Network and shifted the agencies’ focus from only marketing to investing funds in cultural functions and the city’s culture bearers.
“If we don’t invest in them, how do we keep the culture in revenue generation? We want to reinvest in the same people who make the culture and get money to the culture bearers,” says Cantrell. The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Economy is working on providing access to procurement opportunities for local small businesses that are registered with BRASS and those involved in the city’s cultural economy.
The administration has also restructured the French Market Corporation to place a greater emphasis on New Orleans’ cultural economy.
Although voters nixed the three-mil proposition earmarked for infrastructure maintenance, the mayor has $2 million set-aside for maintenance in 2020. She is currently in the process of restructuring $41 million in mils for street maintenance and the public library system that will expire in 2021.
“We need a greater emphasis on saving money,” she asserts. Cantrell is currently advocating for a partnership with Entergy that will save the city three times the amount it is currently paying to generate its own power for S&WB operations. She found surpluses in several departments and redirected the funds. “We also tightened our belt and have gained significant savings.”
“We don’t have all we need but we’re building efficiency for routine maintenance of our infrastructure including our buildings, streets, roads and affordable housing. Our expectation for getting our fair share is that this city will not be left behind or disregarded. We expect a return on the investment we’ve made,” says Cantrell about the shared revenue she needs to address the city’s failing infrastructure.
At the top of Cantrell’s 2020 To-Do list is pushing city residents to answer the 2020 Census. “The Census count can mean more revenue, more representation in redistricting, and effective restructuring in millages,” she explains.
Affordable housing, cleaning up the city (catch basins and illegal dumping sites), providing economic development opportunities for small businesses to become prime contractors with the city through the administration’s Business Mobilization Fund, the redevelopment of the Lower Ninth Ward, and continuing the city’s job growth efforts are also 2020 priorities.
Cyberspace access to the city through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media and free apps are on the list, too. New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) and New Orleans Public Library apps are currently available.
This article originally published in the December 23, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
