Your Guide to the 2025 City Budget Process
The City budget is the single most important decision the City makes each year. Your voice matters -- it's YOUR money. If you care about potholes getting filled, housing getting built or flooding getting better, you care about the budget.
The great news is -- you don't have to be an expert to get involved! Here's your guide to making a difference in the City of New Orleans’ proposed $1.78 Billion budget for next year.
Who decides?
Mayor Cantrell’s team has submitted their proposed budget to City Council. City Council will have to vote to approve it.
Where are we in the process?
The Mayor presented the budget to City Council on October 1st, and the Council has to vote to approve it by December 1st. Now, the City Council will have hearings to get more detailed information from City Department Directors.
City Council Hearings Schedule
All Hearings take place in City Council Chambers at 1300 Perdido St, 1st floor. See council.nola.gov/meetings for updated information.
The City Council website is a little hard to navigate; so we’ve created a one-stop doc with links to the agenda, video stream, and all attachments for each meeting. Click the link below to go to the guide.
What to expect at City Council Budget Hearings
While the Budget Book only includes the amounts of funding for personnel, other operating expenses, and sources of revenue, it doesn’t often tell us much about what the City will do with the money. To hear more about that, you’ll want to attend the Budget Hearings.
Each City Department on the agenda for the day will present their accomplishments from 2024, goals for 2025, and information about how they plan to spend their budget in 2025.
The City Council members will have the chance to ask questions and make requests, and
The public can make comments.
New this year: City Councilmembers’ Public Meetings
Thanks to the voters of Orleans Parish, we now have an additional month to review and revise the budget before it is approved! We’re pleased that the City Council is taking advantage of this time to do more community engagement in their districts about the budget.
Districts A&B: Wednesday Nov. 6, 6-7pm
Uptown, Mid-City, Lakeview, Central City, Broadmoor, & CBD residents can share their priorities with Councilmembers Giarrusso and Harris at Warren Easton High School, 3019 Canal St.
Algiers (Dist. C): Monday Nov. 11, 6-7pm
Westbank residents can join Councilmember King at Algiers Regional Library, 3014 Holiday Drive 3014 Holiday Drive
Lower 9th (Dist C, D & E): Tuesday Nov. 12, 6-7pm
Residents of the eastbank in District C (French Quarter, Marigny, Bywater, St. Roch, 8th Ward & 9th Ward) can join Councilmembers King and Green at Stallings St. Claude Recreational Center, 4300 St. Claude Avenue.
New Orleans East (Dist E): Thursday Nov. 14, 6-7pm
Residents of New Orleans East can share their priorities with Councilmember Thomas at St. Maria Goretti Parish (7300 Crowder Blvd.)
What’s in the budget?
About 20% of the General Fund goes to the NOPD, and only 3% goes toward Housing. Click through the interactive charts below to see the details of the 2025 Proposed Budget expenses.
People: A little more than half of the General Fund goes to personnel. City staff will get a 2.5% raise this year. Police Officers will get an additional 2.5%.
Police, Courts & Jails: Mostly staying the same; together 32% of the General Fund. Police budget is $151M or 18% of General Fund
Streets: The City will spend about $2.5M on streets, and $25M on Right of Way Management. Public Works will have 166 staff (-13 people from last year)
Youth: Modest raise for the Office of Youth & Families, only $1.7M or about 7%.
Housing: The smallest use of General Fund dollars, only 0.3% of the General Fund goes to housing. This year there’s an increase overall in OCD Budget, but a 9% decrease in General Funds. The budget includes a $20M boost to Housing Trust Fund.
Trash: Sanitation got a raise! About $19M additional funds, $18.8M of it is for Trash Collection. The City spends $2M for Mardi Gras Cleanup.
Code Enforcement: Now a department! This makes it easier to track their budget. 66 total employees work in Code Enforcement. About $700M of their funding comes from the Interim Short Term Rental fund for Healthy Homes.
Debt: $18.6M of the Other Fund goes to debt service.
What’s NOT in the City’s Budget
New Orleans has a lot of public agencies, and this decentralized model makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the budget for public services. Some of the key public services residents rely on are not part of the City’s Budget.
Schools - School budgets are managed by charter management orgs. Pre-pandemic funding was about $650M from state, federal and other sources. (BGR 2020)
Transit - Transit budget is managed by the RTA. While they can receive funds from the City, most of their $137M operating budget comes from other sources.
Drainage - Drainage is mostly a function of S&WB, whose Operating Budget totaled $351M last year.
