2027 Proposed Budget Hearings - Day 6.

Transcripts may contain automated transcription errors. Verify important details against the official recording.

Council Member McCarran - Budget questions on sanitation and Mardi Gras cleanup

Department of Sanitation - Budget discussion with Matt Torrey

Public comment: Derek Ridgely

Public comment: Michael Caulfield

Public comment: Jordan Bridges

Public comment: Tyreen Buck

Public comment: Zarul Thomas

Public comment: Morgan Clevenger

Public comment: Magali Ortiz

Public comment: Y. Frank Southall

Public comment: Alfred Taylor

Public comment: Jamal Otis

Council Member McCarran

Mr Newman. Pronounce your first name. I can't read it on Louisa Street. Brill like the shampoo. Oh. And mer like the mermaid. Pearl, oh, perfect. Brill, mer. Come on up. You got two minutes. But anyhow, I'm gonna say good evening. Nah, it was morning when I got here. I hope I don't have a ticket outside on my car. Give it to Council Member Morrell, people. But I'm here to let the, I'm opposed against the fee increase, but I'm also opposed against laying people off. Our sanitation workers are some of the most underpaid, under-celebrated people in our city. I'm gonna say that first of all. Now, I said I was opposed and I've been here. This is not my first time speaking against that $8 increase. I still think the $8 increase is a problem. I still think that we should look at, everybody can't afford $8 increase, especially a lot of the seniors. Where I think we should be looking at is the contract service, IV4 and the other contractors. What are you paying them? You're not saying it here. You're talking about a collective package. What I'm saying to you is this. Look at how you pay them and the way you pay them. I'm glad somebody paid attention to what I've been saying lately because if you saw the news yesterday, we got 13,000 properties here in the city that nobody lives in, but you're paying for a collection service. These things need to be investigated. I tried to go see about getting a court injunction. You got that covered too. Well, who's got $400 just to give and then you gotta come here to First City Court. You're not gonna pay anything to what we say, but what I think you should do as a collective bargain, as a collective group, because I'm going to the mayor next, you all need to get with sanitation. And yes, look at charging these hotels a more fee. They're the ones who make the money. Yeah, we get millions of dollars for Mardi Gras, Essence Festival. I can name them all, but you don't take. Thank you, sir. That's your two minutes. Thank you.

Matt Torrey

Mr Newman. Pronounce your first name. I can't read it on Louisa Street. Brill like the shampoo. Oh. And mer like the mermaid. Pearl, oh, perfect. Brill, mer. Come on up. You got two minutes. But anyhow, I'm gonna say good evening. Nah, it was morning when I got here. I hope I don't have a ticket outside on my car. Give it to Council Member Morrell, people. But I'm here to let the, I'm opposed against the fee increase, but I'm also opposed against laying people off. Our sanitation workers are some of the most underpaid, under-celebrated people in our city. I'm gonna say that first of all. Now, I said I was opposed and I've been here. This is not my first time speaking against that $8 increase. I still think the $8 increase is a problem. I still think that we should look at, everybody can't afford $8 increase, especially a lot of the seniors. Where I think we should be looking at is the contract service, IV4 and the other contractors. What are you paying them? You're not saying it here. You're talking about a collective package. What I'm saying to you is this. Look at how you pay them and the way you pay them. I'm glad somebody paid attention to what I've been saying lately because if you saw the news yesterday, we got 13,000 properties here in the city that nobody lives in, but you're paying for a collection service. These things need to be investigated. I tried to go see about getting a court injunction. You got that covered too. Well, who's got $400 just to give and then you gotta come here to First City Court. You're not gonna pay anything to what we say, but what I think you should do as a collective bargain, as a collective group, because I'm going to the mayor next, you all need to get with sanitation. And yes, look at charging these hotels a more fee. They're the ones who make the money. Yeah, we get millions of dollars for Mardi Gras, Essence Festival. I can name them all, but you don't take. Thank you, sir. That's your two minutes. Thank you.

Derek Ridgely

Derek Ridgely, and thanks for coming down. Derek Ridgely, followed by Michael Caulfield. Good afternoon. I'm one of the supervisors at the sanitation department. Y'all pretty much covered what we was talking about. I was concerned about the cuts in the job layoffs and stuff like that, because I want y'all to picture this free party that we have with Mardi Gras. And I want y'all to see y'all getting video, having fun, toasting, and all that stuff. I want you to think about the same people that's videoing y'all, that's going to be videoing the next day with all that trash out there. And we ain't even speak on the storms. Like, I was here for Ida. Did y'all see what happened for Ida? Did you see how fast the sanitation department cleaned that up? Like, if you reduce us, who going to get that? And like he said, with the parks and stuff like that, the tires, I was the one who actually went and picked them tires up on Tyler Donald. Thank you.

Michael Caulfield

Michael Caulfield. How y'all doing? Well, I just want to say that I think the custodial department is going to be terrible. You gotta think about the trash that we're going to leave behind. And what about the rats that y'all going to leave with the trash that's going to be going in people's houses? Y'all going to have a bigger problem just than our department going to clean up the trash. We have to keep our department intact. We're do a lot for the city. So the city should do the same for us. Thank you.

Jordan Bridges

Jordan Bridges. Good morning, council. Always good to be here with y'all. I'm so glad to hear how the conversation is going and y'all are seeing the implications of this Mardi Gras cleanup and Department of Sanitation issue. I worked the Mardi Gras cleanup for the last two years, even being an organizer at the Worker's Center. I got to walk beside the workers that are doing this great work, the Department of Sanitation workers, but also I have to highlight the workers that come through job one. There are so many issues that we've been working. Shout out to Matt Torrey for all the work that you're doing. There's been a preliminary growth in response to the white paper that we submitted to some of your offices. And I'm looking forward to continuing those discussions. But this goes beyond just cleaning up the city streets and stuff. There are systems and processes that are leaving the workers out. We have workers that aren't even getting paid for six weeks after the Mardi Gras cleanup that was documented this past year. We have a living wage ordinance that was won in 2016, and those wages go up every year. And we're consistently behind because we don't have a day where we enforce that consumer price index being added to the funds of the workers. So this is also a wage issue, properly equipping workers to go out there and do the work. And we've made preliminary agreements to do that, more signage for waters, more signage for where people can get those resources. But we're having workers sit outside for hours to wait to start the work and the processes to actually get to the end of the night. When you have thin gloves, when you have not enough protection equipment, this goes far beyond just making sure that people aren't fired. We have to make sure that people aren't getting cut off and laid off and have the equipment to do the job necessary. And then also on the city's end of making sure that we enforce some of the things that are on the books. So let's get these workers protected. Let's fund the gear. Let's certify the living. Thank you.

Tyreen Buck

Tyreen Buck. Hello. How you doing, everybody? My name is Tyreen Buck. I live in the city of New Orleans. I worked the Mardi Gras cleanup one time. I actually had fun doing it. I love this city. But I did not get paid for six weeks after the cleanup was over. I was paying rent. I had to write a demand letter to get money I had already earned. That should not happen to anybody. All I'm asking is that you take care of us so we can keep making money. All I'm asking is that you take care of us so we can keep making this city look good and everybody can enjoy carnival season. Thank you.

Zarul Thomas

Zarul Thomas. Good afternoon, council members and everyone present. When New Orleans faces financial challenges, I ask that we consider not only the cost of maintaining our department, but the cost of losing the employees who serve our communities. The Department of Sanitation does far more than keeping our streets clean. Sanitation rangers investigate legal dumping, respond to complaints, inspect properties, enforce ordinances, and pursue adjudications when property owners fail to comply. In 2026 alone, we've handled 121 adjudication hearings, resulting in $615,925 in fines assessed. That's over $600,000 in assessments generated through enforcement efforts by a team of just five active rangers with one position already vacant. But our value extends beyond number. I was born and raised in New Orleans. These aren't just streets I patrol or neighborhoods I inspect. These are communities that help shape who I am. Now working for the city that raised me, I have the opportunity to give back. This isn't just a paycheck. It's personal, it's pride, and it's purpose. As budget cuts and potential job losses are considered, I ask, who will investigate the illegal dumping? Who will hold violators accountable? And who will protect our neighborhoods? Reducing our workforce won't eliminate these problems. It could make them worse. Sanitation rangers are more than positions on a payroll. We protect public health and neighborhood safety, as well as the quality of life. I respectfully ask that you reconsider our contribution and protect these essential...

Morgan Clevenger

Morgan Clevenger. Good afternoon. Thank you to all the sanitation workers. Y'all keep Broad looking good. We appreciate that. Thank you. Yes. And thank you for considering that this is a really non-starter. I do have some questions. As the first speaker said, let's look at the contract. We keep saying that wildly unpopular is this fee, because the contract seems extremely bloated. So when we say that, some of the questions we asked during those hearings were, what is the status of the overpayments to the 21,000 ghost addresses and the recycling addresses that were charged but not serviced? Where is that money? Mardi Gras, 2.1 million visitors average to Mardi Gras. Didn't you say 2.1 million is the gap you're talking about? Businesses and hotels, especially out of town, businesses make a lot of money during Mardi Gras. They're the biggest winners. But we need to look at that. We cannot keep burdening the taxpayers of New Orleans, but also the crews and the second-line organizations that create the culture, that actually bring the people here. We can't keep putting the burden on them. So there's plenty of pots of money around this city. The strike force, look, they're talking about $500,000—you asked the question, Matt—$500,000 for equipment this year, 2027, plus the $500,000 for personnel. I think that needs to be looked at. There's money around, and we've got to find it, because we can't let this department go down. Can't do it. Thank you.

Magali Ortiz

Magali Ortiz with the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. Council members, as has been acknowledged today, the Mardi Gras cleanup is a major and very important undertaking, and it is hard work. We have spent the last two Mardi Gras investigating the conditions of this work and found that there was much to be improved. I can attest to that, having worked the cleanup myself and having spent many, many hours talking to the workers temporarily hired by the city to clean up its streets. With dust in the air, glass bottles breaking under your feet, and trash getting flung around, it is important for these workers to be protected from the hazards of this work. We are glad that our conversations with the Department of Sanitation are resulting in better provisions of personal protective equipment and commend the work of Mr. Torrey in meeting with us and listening to our concerns. However, proposed cuts aside, these workers are already routinely underpaid and paid late for their work in violation of New Orleans and Louisiana law. This area of the cleanup is overseen by the Office of the Workforce Development and must be rectified. We also have a number of recommendations on how the hiring process and other elements of this temporary work could be improved. Basically, at the Workers' Center, we spent a lot of time thinking about how the Mardi Gras cleanup could be improved, so we were shocked to see that this is one of the main items on the cutting block for the city. This last Mardi Gras generated the most waste on record, 1,364 tons, and that scale of waste is not going to go down. The simple fact is that Mardi Gras generates waste and somebody has to clean it. So we are worried that any form of cuts will either, one, mean that fewer workers are expected to do the same amount of work, which puts them at risk, two, workers are hired but they are paid less, which is not allowed under the city's living wage ordinance, although that has already been violated many years in a row, or three, it will be privatized in some way, which risks worse conditions for temporary workers. If the cleanup cuts cannot be avoided, we ask that they be carried out in a way that does not impact workers and that our recommendations, which we have presented to some of you on the council, be thoughtfully adopted in order for the Mardi Gras cleanup to be something the city can be truly proud of. Thank you.

Y. Frank Southall

Y. Frank Southall. Jane Place, organizing communication manager. We stand in solidarity with all workers. We're not a labor organization. Everyone knows we work on a broad range of housing rights, but often intersection between labor rights and how workers are being paid become an issue for us because we hear from seasonal workers often in the months June to September that they are facing eviction due to economic issues. So it's absolutely a priority that our seasonal workers doing carnival work get paid on time so they can pay their rent. There should be no reason why six weeks ago, and workers not be paid. And also, as someone who's into St. Charles Rolling Cruise, I know their state provides a lot of regulations to preempt us as a city from passing more robust progressive taxing fee situations, but as someone who's into St. Charles Rolling Cruise as just a regular middle-class worker, I know that there are crew members who can foot the bill to pay $50, $100 more. I know it's a very unpopular thing, and I'm probably going to be murdering social media for saying this, but I think we should examine these, and I think, if anything, we should not balance these fees and budgets off of our second-line crews, all of our, you know, black cultural bearers, absolutely. I think these uptown crews, I'm in a crew where about a third of people don't live here, they don't have a family connection, nor an ancestral connection to the city, and they can foot the bill, just the one I do. But most importantly, my message is, make sure the workers are paid on time. There's no reason why six weeks ago, and workers not be paid. Thank you very much.

Alfred Taylor

Alfred Taylor. Good afternoon, council and everybody. I want to first say thank you all for making the decisions that, you know, the tough decisions to run the city. And then I want to say also, I'm one of the people that, I clean the city every day, and I can't afford to live here. I have to get a second job just to live, you know what I'm saying? And I mean, I'm hearing a lot of numbers being thrown around and everything, but nobody's speaking on, like, the actual numbers. Like, on a Sunday, we clean up for the second line, and nobody's saying that this is six guys. It's six guys in total that we clean the city, six people, and then we have a time frame. You know, there's a lot of stuff that's being said, you know, that's not being said. But to answer the question of if we're cut short, will the city stink? Yes. It's going to be a major problem if there's cuts in sanitation, because right now, with the crew that we have running now, we getting it done, we've been asked to give 115 percent, and me and the rest, well, the rest of the crew and myself, we give 150. You know, I walk five, six miles a day, and, you know, it's frustrating. Sometimes I want to walk away, but this is my city, you know, and so I'm going to stay and do what I'm supposed to do, and I'm just asking that the city council do what they're supposed to do and keep us funded. Thank you.

Jamal Otis

Jamal Otis. Good afternoon, Council. My name is Jamal Otis, and I represent the City of New Orleans Government employees from Local 2349. I stand before you all asking that this proposed budget not be adopted. Council, the union was not involved in this process. The members was not involved in this process, and as Councilmember Hughes stated, these workers do go above and beyond, and this department is already short-staffed. One of our members just said, it's six on a Sunday, so if you are proposing to cut 55 percent, and it's already short-staffed, we have to put out a fire, because those workers was ready to walk out when Matt mentioned that this was going to be, they were not going to have to work Mardi Gras. They look forward to working Mardi Gras, because that's where they get their overtime. So when this was proposed to them, they were ready to walk out, but this is something that we had to go in and talk to the city workers, talk to our members, because guess what? These are the workers that labor and do the work, so I'm asking that y'all reconsider this budget and not put it on the backs of our members. Thank you.

2027 Proposed Budget Hearings - Day 6.

Summary

Meeting summary

Overall context

Speakers and key points — 1) Mr. Newman

2) Derek Ridgely (sanitation department supervisor)

3) Michael Caulfield

4) Jordan Bridges

5) Tyreen Buck

6) Zarul Thomas

7) Morgan Clevenger

8) Magali Ortiz (New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice)

Unresolved issues / notable themes from the excerpt

Notes

Context

Speakers and main points — Unnamed representative from the Workers’ Center (first speaker)

Y. Frank Southall (Jane Place, organizing communications manager)

Alfred Taylor

Jamal Otis (Local 2349, City of New Orleans Government Employees)

Decisions, votes, and actions

Actions requested by speakers

Unresolved issues presented

Notable data points mentioned

Overall takeaways

Transcript