Verite: Is the city of New Orleans facing a fiscal cliff? City officials disagree.
CBNO Executive Director Nellie Catzen was interviewed on the City’s fiscal crisis, and the need for greater budget transparency.
“Altogether, it is not yet evident what the exact impact of all of these factors will be on the city’s 2025 budget. But in the midst of these challenges, New Orleanians have received mixed messages about the state of the city’s finances.
‘The transparency is so bad around this stuff, it’s no wonder that nobody can make sense of it,’ said Nellie Catzen, the executive director of the Committee for Better New Orleans, which runs programs educating residents on the city budget.
‘We shouldn’t have to choose who to believe,’ she added.”
… for Catzen, the issue is bigger than just whether the city’s budget is in crisis. For her, the issue is that the public is not given sufficient information about the budget to engage in the debate. Instead, they have to follow the back-and-forth between city officials.
“It’s ridiculous that the people of New Orleans are having to pick sides when this should be a black-and-white answer,” Catzen said. “The data should be available to us to make a reasonable decision or assessment of where we’re at.”
Also covered by: US News New Orleans City Business
