Should taxpayers pay for city’s overspending?

Emergencies happen. Flat tires, medical scares, a burst pipe — those are genuine emergencies.

But when poor planning, procrastination or negligence is treated like a crisis that you now have to solve, that’s not helping anyone. And when you keep bailing people out of problems they created, you’ll keep getting more of those problems — with fewer people learning to solve them.

That’s why this old saying still rings true: “Lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part.” That’s not being cruel. It’s not heartless. It’s healthy. It’s not rejecting compassion. It’s rejecting chaos.

And chaos is exactly what I thought of when I heard that New Orleans is $160 million short of what it needs to pay its expected expenses for fiscal year 2025. Let that sink in: They don’t even have enough cash on hand to pay their employees’ salaries — and they’ve offered absolutely no explanation of how this overspending happened. None. Zip. Nada.

This isn’t a cash flow problem. It’s a competency problem. It’s a credibility problem. It’s a leadership problem.

And now, apparently, it’s your problem, as a Louisiana taxpayer, because they’re looking to the state — meaning the hardworking taxpayers of Louisiana — to pony up the $160 million to cover their shortfall. And they don’t want any state control, any oversight or even state approval of how the money is spent.

In other words, they want a blank check.

But isn’t this just rewarding bad behavior and guaranteeing you’ll get more of it? This may be an emergency now, but this is years of financial mismanagement catching up with them. Years of bloated contracts, waste, fraud, abuse and pretending that basic math doesn’t apply to them.

And now, as the bill comes due, their solution is to economize by cutting police hours and not paying the trash bill.

Is that what New Orleans really needs right now? Less policing and letting the garbage pile higher and higher? More crime and more stink — that’s the plan?

If the city wants the taxpayers’ money, the state should have complete oversight of how it’s spent. Period. No blank checks. No more “trust us” promises from city hall. If Louisianians are going to be on the hook for $160 million, then the state should get the final say in where every penny goes.

That’s not punishment; that’s protection.

Protection for taxpayers. Protection for the people of New Orleans who actually want their city to work again.

Because if you let the same people who dug the hole keep the shovel, you’re going to get a deeper hole. And, not to make this partisan (although I know I’m about to), but the last Republican to hold the mayor’s office in New Orleans was Benjamin Franklin Flanders, all the way back in 1870, during the turbulent Reconstruction era.

Since then? It’s been one long, unbroken line of Democratic mayors — from the Reconstruction right up to today. One party, one ideology, one entrenched political culture running the city for over a century and a half.

Those are the facts. But if there’s a silver lining here, it’s that this crisis can be the turning point New Orleans has needed for a long time. This is a moment of truth. A chance to finally confront decades of mismanagement head-on. To implement real fiscal reform. To put the city on a sustainable path for future generations.

Motivational speaker Les Brown reminds us, “When life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up.”

And the city will get up. However, that won’t happen unless there is accountability and transparency, as demanded by state oversight.

Yes, we do love New Orleans. But love isn’t blind.

And it certainly shouldn’t leave us $160 million in the hole — whether it’s an emergency or not.

Louis R. Avallone is a Shreveport businessman, attorney and author of “Bright Spots, Big Country, What Makes America Great.” He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. His columns have appeared regularly in 318 Forum since 2007. Follow him on Facebook, on Twitter @louisravallone or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac.com, and on American Ground Radio at 101.7FM and 710 AM, weeknights from 6 - 7 p.m., and streaming live on keelnews.com.