“All bills incurred doing enterprise on behalf of the town of New Orleans won’t be reimbursed to the town of New Orleans.”
NEW ORLEANS — A defiant New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell is refusing to pay the town roughly $29,000 she charged this yr to improve her metropolis air journey to enterprise and first-class.
“All bills incurred doing enterprise on behalf of the town of New Orleans won’t be reimbursed to the town of New Orleans,” she stated Thursday at an occasion in Algiers. “One factor is evident: I do my job, and I’ll proceed to do it with distinction and integrity each step of the best way. That’s what I’ve to say on that.”
Town’s journey coverage states, “Workers are required to buy the bottom airfare out there…Workers who select an improve from coach, financial system, or enterprise class flights are solely chargeable for the distinction in value.”
The coverage additionally states “Any reconciliation of journey bills that ends in overpayment by the Metropolis requires that the worker reimburse the Metropolis inside twenty enterprise days”
“The coverage of the town of New Orleans says workers, in the event that they determine to fly first-class versus the decrease fare, they should reimburse the town,” New Orleans legal professional and authorized analyst Tim Meche stated.
The mayor listed the town of New Orleans as her employer on her monetary disclosure type.
However Meche says that doesn’t essentially make her a metropolis worker topic to the journey coverage.
“Beneath my analysis, I don’t suppose she is. The difficulty is historically what have mayors of municipalities been thought of and in nearly all of the circumstances they’re not thought of to be workers.”
Metropolis Council President Helena Moreno is now looking for authorized opinions from each the town legal professional and the council’s legal professional as as to whether the journey coverage applies to the mayor and in that case, whether or not she must reimburse the town for her journey upgrades.
In March, the mayor spent greater than $2,800 to fly first-class to Miami for a U.S. Convention of Mayors gathering.
That’s about 9 instances the $342 NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson paid to fly financial system to the identical assembly. Different staffers paid $677.
In January, the mayor spent greater than $2,300 to fly first-class to a Convention of Mayors’ assembly in Washington, DC. The remainder of her entourage paid $250.
The mayor has now racked up greater than $29,000 in additional airfare.
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