News

August 12, 2020 | From City of New Orleans

City Oversight Effort Identifies, Secures $1.5M in Dedicated Funding for Several Department Efforts

NEW ORLEANS — The City has announced the release of approximately $1.5 million in unused funds from a variety of trusts that will help support the efforts of several City agencies, thanks in part to Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s reactivation of the Board of City Trusts.

 

“Over the past year, the City has been working to identify special funds and trusts that have been dormant for extended periods of time. After rigorous research and the work of many City departments, 14 funds have been identified that fall under the purview of the Board of City Trusts and has secured its approval for expenditure,” said Mayor Cantrell. “I want to give special thanks to Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño and Chief Financial Officer Norman White for their leadership on these efforts to seek out these forgotten funds and put them to work to improve the lives of our residents.”

 

For the purpose of auditing and accounting for donations and special revenues to the City, the City currently oversees 73 non-major special funds.

 

“The Mayor tasked our team with finding all dollars available to the City at the start of her term, and we took that task seriously. We were able to uncover dollars that remained inactive, in some cases for over 100 years. These resources will now be put to their highest and best use, while honoring the original intent of each donation,” said CAO Montaño.

 

Mayor Cantrell and CFO White are ex officio members of the Board, which approved the expenditures at its first meeting under the Cantrell administration on Aug. 5, 2020. While the Board has been in operation since the new City charter in 1954, the most recent meeting for which the administration was able to find minutes was Dec. 20, 1984.

 

“This was a great discovery for the City, and it was necessary that we, in accordance with the Mayor's vision, find dollars that can be directed towards the financial support of critical needs,” said CFO White.

 

Notable among the larger expenditures was a donation of $377,188 from the Sickles Legacy Trust that will help cover vaccine and Naloxone costs for indigent residents as part of the New Orleans Health Department’s efforts on what has become a national opioid epidemic. The largest amount was a combined $626,000 in donations to the New Orleans Public Library to update technology, exterior lighting, consistent branding and signage, and hard-scraping at various library branches.

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