Mayor-Elect Moreno shares her New Direction New Orleans 2026 budget plan

New Orleans Mayor-Elect Helena Moreno and New Orleans City Councilman Joe Giarrusso join Newell to share details about the City of New Orleans 2026 budget and the strategy for a leaner, more efficient government. Moreno says the current workforce is unsustainable. 400 positions were added by the last administration, jobs funded by short-term grant money, Covid dollars, and FEMA support, but when the funds expired, the city kept many of those jobs anyway. Now the transition team is mapping out what will change and which positions can be eliminated or taken over by others. They’re also looking at collapsing some departments and having other departments take on that work and eliminating some high-paying leadership positions whose work could be handled by other department heads.