Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Budget, Audit, and Board of Review Committee of the New Orleans City Council convened on October 22, 2026, to review the August 2026 budget reports, hear a detailed proposal on the millage roll forward, discuss a range of civil service pay plan amendments, and receive a presentation on the YouthForce NOLA Summer Internship Program.
Ready to go, Ashley. First up is roll call budget chair. Um, Councilmember Harris. Here. Council Member Willard. Council Member Morrel. We have a quorum. All right, Ashley. We're gonna take things out of order just to get uh over the voting items. All right. Next up is approval of the minutes from the September twenty second, twenty twenty six joint utility cable and telecommunications and GA and budget committee meetings. I'll move. Seconded by Council Member Morrell. All in favor? Three A's. Then we're gonna jump to number four, which is motion M twenty six four fifty-nine by Councilmember Harris. And this is a motion that authorizes the RFP to select our audit firms to conduct the financial and pension audits for fiscal year twenty twenty six and four subsequent years. Um contracts are expiring, and we have to issue new RFPs to get our audit contractors done. Any questions? If not, I'll move. Good afternoon. Today we will be providing the overview of the city's financial performance through August 2026. I'll start with the revenues and then I'll turn it over to the budget director here to go through the expenditure detail and then I'll wrap up with a fund balance projection. On this chart here, as of October, excuse me, August 31st, the city's financial position reflects $558 million in operating revenues and $483 million in personnel and other operating expenditures, resulting in $700, excuse me, $75.5 million year to date net position. On the far right of the chart here, you can see operating revenues are approximately 48 million above the year to date budget, and expenditures are below by 50.5 million when compared to the spending benchmark. That expenditure benchmark is a useful comparison, but always want to remind you that spending does not occur evenly throughout the year, so these variances should not be interpreted as a year-end projection. The other financing section, the activity primarily reflects the transfers between the city's cash management fund, which we have used throughout the year to manage timing differences between revenue collections and expenditures. Because cash flow, cash inflows and outflows do not occur at the same time or at consistent levels, these transfers help manage the city's cash needs throughout the year and should not be confused with operating revenue or interpreted as additional revenue available to support the budget. Overall, the revenue results remain favorable against the forecast, while spending is below the straight line benchmark. Now we'll move on to the revenue collections report. Starting on the left with property taxes, collections are approximately 174 million, slightly below the 175 collected at this point last year, and just above the year to date budget of 171 million. Moving on to sales tax, we're approximately 188 million dollars, which is essentially unchanged from last year and above the year-to-date budget of 178 million. Specifically, hotel motel are below 2025 marks, while parking tax collections have increased. This category remains important to monitor as we assess the revenue outlook for the balance of the year. Service charge collections are approximately 65 million, which is down 3.2 or 4.7 from 2025, representing 63.8 of the annual forecasts. Public safety service charges are down compared with the prior year, while sanitation charges are slightly higher. And because this category is below the prior year level, we'll continue tracking collections and the underlying activity driving these receipts. As we've heard, occupational license collections are approximately $11.9 million or $109% of their annual forecasts. Alcoholic beverage license collections are also above their annual forecast. In contrast, building permit collections are approximately 47% of their annual forecasts and are below the prior year level. Overall, the category is positive, but individual revenue sources show the different patterns, and then, of course, in the other category, which is approximately $72 million compared to the $43 last year, and a budget of $50, the increase is primarily driven by the miscellaneous revenue, including transfers from NOBC and the assessor's office. Excluding the increase in the miscellaneous revenue, the operating revenue categories, the other operating revenue categories collectively declined by approximately 6.6 million with 20 compared to 2025. We should not assume that the elevated miscellaneous receipts will continue at the same pace, of course, without reviewing their underlying nature and expected recurrence. So that brings our total operating revenue of approximately 558 million compared to the 539 million this time last year, and our budget of 510 million. All right. Moving on to these cases. Through August, combined personnel and other operating expenditures totaled approximately 482.7 million or 60.3% of the adopted budget. This is approximately 50.5 million below year-to-date benchmark.