Budget/Audit/Board of Review Committee Meeting - July 15, 2026
Budget/Audit/Board of Review Committee Meeting - July 15, 2026
The Budget/Audit/Board of Review Committee of the New Orleans City Council met on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at 10:00 A.M. with a quorum present (Councilmembers Harris, Willard, Morrell, and McCarron). Councilmember Freddie King (District C) was absent. The committee approved several consent items and received presentations on the FY2025 annual audit, the May 2026 budget report, and discussed a new Central Adjudication Bureau administrator position.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes (June 15, 2026): Approved 4-0 (Motion by Willard, Second by McCarron).
- M-26-XXX (OpenGov 311 Module): Authorized an amendment to add maintenance payments and adopt the OpenGov 311 Module to improve work order intake for non-addressable public assets. Approved 4-0 (Motion by Harris, Second by Willard). Discussion included the technical limitations of the current address-based 311 system and a projected launch in late 2026 or early 2027.
- CAL. NOS. 35,484 & 35,485 (Housing Bond Funds): Transferred $17,034,118 from Intergovernmental Revenues (Fund 6699) to the Housing Bond Fund (Fund 5157) to fund prior housing projects (e.g., Iris Riverbend, Growth PLace, LaFeed Phase 7, BW Cooper). Approved 4-0 (Motion by Harris, Second by McCarron).
Discussion Items
- CAL. NOS. 35,487 & 35,488 (Rapid Rehousing Program): These ordinances would transfer $750,000 to the Health Department for United Way Rapid Rehousing. Deferred to the full council meeting of July 23, 2026, with no committee recommendation.
- FY2025 Annual Audit Presentation (CRI, Becky Hammond): Presented by audit partner Becky Hammond. Highlights:
- Unmodified (clean) opinion on financial statements.
- Material weakness: Prior period adjustments totaling $10.9 million ($2.5M unrecorded GoZone bond revenue; $8.4M unrecorded workers’ comp expenditures). Administration had already implemented corrective procedures.
- Non-compliance: Underfunded firefighter pension (ongoing since 2017); new system funding improved to 18% (from 7–12%), old system to 25% (from 2.82%).
- Other findings: Minor exceptions in bank reconciliations and collections (deposit timing, shared cash drawers).
- General fund equity fell to $67.3 million (from $205.6M in 2024), representing a deficit, though cash increased due to liquidated investments and a revenue anticipation note.
- M-26-44 (CAB Administrator): Discussion only. The committee suspended rules to add the item. Mr. Wilte (CAO office) explained the Central Adjudication Bureau administrator role would oversee civil adjudication hearings (code enforcement, STR, zoning, etc.). Council President Morrell raised concerns about past CAB issues. No vote; the matter was added to the next council meeting agenda.
- M-26-242 (Fire Transitional Duty Classifications): Deferred to August 6, 2026, council meeting.
- May 2026 Budget Reports/Executive Summary: Presented by Abby VN, Chief Performance Officer. Key figures:
- Net position positive $91.9 million year-to-date.
- Revenues $392.5M (exceeded budget by $22M and prior year by $46.3M).
- Expenditures $300.6M (37.6% of annual budget, below benchmark).
- Overtime spending down, at 36% of annual budget ($14M expended).
- 5% vacancy rate (248 positions unfilled), temporarily reduced by summer hires.
- Undited fund balance as of May 31, 2026: $33.15 million (combined with audited FY2025 ending of $67.3M).
- Sales tax collections at 45% of budget as of July 10 (property tax at 94%). Council Vice President Willard expressed concern about sales tax trajectory.
- M-26-44 (CAB Administrator) – Discussion: See above.
Key Outcomes
- Votes: Four consent items approved unanimously (4-0).
- Deferrals: CAL. NOS. 35,487 & 35,488 deferred to July 23, 2026 council meeting; M-26-242 deferred to August 6, 2026.
- Next Steps: The CAB administrator motion (M-26-44) will be placed on the next full council meeting agenda for consideration. The administration will provide updates on the OpenGov 311 module transition. The finance department is expected to address audit recommendations on deposit timeliness and cash drawer policies.
- Adjournment: Motion to adjourn by Harris, second by McCarron, passed 4-0.
Meeting Transcript
All right, everyone. Sorry, I have a summer cold, so I found a little froggy. Um, but this is our budget audit board of review committee meeting for Wednesday, July fifteenth. And I believe we have a quorum. Ashley, can you do roll call, please? Council Member Harris, yeah. Councilmember Willard. Councilmember McCarron. Here, we have a quorum. All right, I'll go ahead and move for approval of the budget committee meeting minutes of June fifteenth, twenty twenty six. Seconded by Councilmember McCarron. All in favor. Passes. All right. Item number three is motion, a motion to approve an agreement between the City of New Orleans and OpenGov to allow the city to adopt the OpenGov three one module. And I believe Mr. Wisby is here on behalf of the administration to talk about the motion. Authorize the city to pay uh maintenance payments on the asset management system we already have deployed, uh, reauthorize a uh geocham investment that was initially authorized in December of twenty twenty-five through a separate amendment this council passed, uh, which will allow us to collect that type of asset data from within city facilities for property management to be able to more effectively maintain and service city facilities, and then thirdly, to add uh the three one module, which will essentially function as an intake module for work orders that will be fed into the asset management system. The issue with the current 311 system which we had originally envisioned integrating with the asset management system is that it is an address-based system where it is not geographically and geospatially calibrated and so as a result you have an address where there is a potential outage but many of these public assets are not associated with addresses. There's no address for example for a traffic light um and so it limits the uh city's ability to generate work orders on those assets within the system. So this will allow us to more effectively intake and manage resident uh issues that get reported and ensure that there are work orders routed for those items are there any questions? Councilmember Willard Hey Jonathan is the 311 system integrated with open gov right now or is this going to be something totally new yeah we we had initially intended to integrate the two systems but once we did some greater technical discovery we learned that the quick based system that is currently being used by OPCD effectively cannot be integrated with OpenGov system because of their use of geospatial data in the fact that you cannot translate the addresses to the specific geospatial location of that asset. And that's when we decided we need to go to a plan B and upgrade the the type of system that it is I think the quick based system as it was originally developed was basically to meet an immediate need, but it's now fallen behind from a technology standpoint it's no longer uh an an effective 311 system I would say. What's that transition period going to look like do we anticipate that to be relatively seamless or um well uh sir the the truth is that in every IT project I've done I don't know if I would describe any of them is is seamless. Uh you know there are always technical difficulties you encounter along the way I think what this amendment does is allow us to launch this project beginning in August uh we still have some work to do on the exact timeline and the development of the project plan which will begin after the amendment but my expectation is you're probably looking at months you know so you're potentially looking at something later this year early next year uh launching publicly uh so I again I wouldn't use the word seamless and I'm sure we'll encounter you know difficulties as we go to implement uh but I think the fact that we are using a module that's already integrated with the asset management system eliminates a lot of the technical complexity related you know that is involved in integrating two different IT systems. Okay can you just keep us posted on the transition process? We we will do and and as we're getting ready to launch I think we'll also let you all know in case you want us to come in front and do a a presentation on sort of what that means for residents. Okay. Thank you Jonathan Any other questions with that I'll move can I get a second? Second by council member Willard all in favor? It passes thank you. Thank you. Item number four calendar numbers 35484 and 35485 which is transferring 17 point one almost million from IGR to the housing bond fund I believe Liz Holman present. Hi Liz, can you go ahead and talk about this? Sure. Yeah so this is moving some old 2021 and 2024 bond funds that were put in the housing trust fund kind of as a placeholder to a new fund called I believe it's the Affordable Housing Bond something along those lines. It's from 5155 to 5157 basically what it does is it's gonna allow us to pay for several projects that were already under contract on and have the accounting just a little more clean. Any questions? Council Vice President Willard were were any of these projects supposed to be funded with the recent bond sale that we did? No. Okay uh the reason I'm asking I was just wondering if it freed up any money for the upcoming um bond sales that we're doing so this was always yeah this it's Iris Riverbend um growth place to LaFeed phase seven and BW Cooper. Okay, so this is just to kind of clear up some of the financial Yeah and this has been kind of a long uh long running pipeline for those who were here last term we we were working through that um trying to figure it out. Okay. Thank you Liz. Sure. Any other questions? Alright with that I'll move. Seconded by council member McCarran. All in favor? It passes thank you Liz.
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