Mayor Moreno’s proposed 2027 budget cuts the General Fund by 4.5% and asks nearly every department to absorb it. One department is exempt. NOPD’s General Fund allocation rises $5.1 million to $167.1 million, it adds about 50 positions while the rest of city government sheds roughly 165, and its share of the General Fund grows from 20% to 22%.
That would be a defensible choice if NOPD had shown it could be trusted with the money. The record says otherwise.
The department’s own conduct created the deficit this budget closes. The Inspector General reported in January that officers logged 260,000 overtime hours in the first seven months of 2025, costing $16.5 million, with no consistent verification that the hours were worked. Roughly $50 million of the city’s 2025 shortfall was unfunded NOPD overtime. The city had to borrow $125 million from the state to make payroll. Six weeks ago an officer was arrested for allegedly billing $111,000 in overtime hours he spent at home.
The department ignored the law when it was inconvenient. For years NOPD used Project NOLA’s private camera network and its live facial recognition system to track people across the city, in violation of the surveillance ordinance the Council passed in 2022. That practice went unacknowledged until reporters exposed it. No one was disciplined. The ordinance remains on the books; the department’s compliance with it remains an open question.
The budget book contains no line for surveillance technology, cameras, or drones, and no explanation of what the additional $5.1 million buys. The Council should demand one.
What the city cut to pay for it
The services that actually reduce crime and make neighborhoods livable are where the money came from.
- Juvenile intervention. Human Services, which houses the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center, drops from $7.8 million to $1.9 million; its General Fund staff falls from 65 to 12. Keeping kids out of the adult system is the cheapest crime prevention the city funds.
- Streets and lighting. Public Works loses $10.9 million (36%). Its General Fund money for potholes, streetlights and signals is cut from $19.9 million to $10.1 million. Dark streets and broken signals are a public safety problem in their own right.
- Parks and recreation space. Parks & Parkways loses 24% of its budget and 20 positions.
- Sanitation. Down $6.2 million and 18 positions, three weeks after the Council raised the sanitation fee from $24 to $32.25 a month. Residents pay a third more for a smaller department.
- Fire. The Fire Department loses $12.4 million (9%) across all funds, with staffing held flat.
- Health. The Health Department’s General Fund allocation drops 32%.
Every one of these is a service the public can see and measure. NOPD’s additional money is neither.
What to ask
Council budget hearings begin this fall; the millage hearing is November 5 at 10 a.m. in Council Chambers. Four questions are worth putting to your councilmember:
- What specifically does NOPD’s additional $5.1 million fund?
- What overtime controls are in place now that weren’t in 2025, and who verifies them?
- How will NOPD be held accountable?
- Why is the city cutting juvenile intervention by 75% while adding 50 police positions?
Until the department answers for its own overtime and its own surveillance practices, it should not be the one part of city government exempt from the cuts.
