August 31, 2010
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News: Louisiana's Mayor and IG Clean Up City Spending
Louisiana's Inspector General and the city's new Mayor wants to clean up the city office as they seek to curb credit card spending and hold administrators accountable to how they spend taxpayers' dollars. Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux and Mayor Mitch Landrieu have teamed up together to set new credit card and spending policies in place that will save the taxpayers thousands of dollars. The initiative is in response to questionable spending during former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's administration, whereby Nagin and his staff allegedly financed thousands of dollars in questionable travel and credit card expenses. A report by Quatrevaux attributes lax policies regarding expenses contributed to the problem.
Mayor Landrieu's staff will be working on making changes in 93 credit card and spending policies that have been recommended by the Inspector. According to Quatrevaux, some of the proposed changes are commonsense measures that any municipality should have in place which include prohibiting reimbursement on hotel charges relating to entertainment and mini bar items. Quatrevaux has also recommended that the city acquire price quotes from three airlines before purchasing a ticket, restricting city travel to coach, economy or business class and no longer paying for travel expenses of companions or spouses. Furthermore, documentation must accompany all credit card expenses.
An investigation into the former Mayor's expenses prompted the Inspector General to seek out the assistance of Mayor Landrieu in making the necessary changes to policies. The report was prompted by an audit of the former Sanitation Director Veronica White's expenses. The review discovered that White had more than $6,350 in charges on her city issued credit card in 2007 and 2008 and took 13 trips at the city's expense costing nearly $27,000. Furthermore, the former mayor and his staff charged over $150,000 toward questionable travel. Two of Mayor Nagin's aides were responsible for over $81,000 of those expenses. These numbers are an indication as to just how extensive the needlessly spending of taxpayer money amount to.