{"id":390879,"date":"2026-04-10T01:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390879\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T01:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:55:09","slug":"new-orleans-nears-end-to-dispute-with-police-pension-system-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390879\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans nears end to dispute with police pension system | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno\u2019s administration is close to resolving a feud<\/a> with the statewide police pension system, after two bills advanced through the state House Retirement Committee on Thursday.<\/p>\n

If the bills become law, the city will be relieved of more than $40 million in penalties stemming primarily from attrition in the New Orleans Police Department. The bills\u2019 sponsor, Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, said he served as a moderator between the pension system and city officials from New Orleans and others with penalized police departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been all out war for a couple years,\u201d Bacala told committee members on Thursday. \u201cToday is reset day.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Bill 49<\/a> eliminates penalties for \u201cpartial dissolution\u201d of local police departments, which have throttled New Orleans and smaller cities alike in recent years as departments have struggled to recruit and retain officers. The city and pension system have been in litigation after the NOPD force shrank by about 200 officers in 2021 and 2022, resulting in penalties totaling $38.5 million.<\/p>\n

House Bill 45<\/a> stipulates that retention bonuses don\u2019t count toward pension calculations, an issue that flared up after the Moreno administration paid $9.5 million in bonuses and then didn\u2019t remit $3.5 million in associated retirement payments to the pension system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese changes correct deeply punitive policies that placed an undue burden on our city and others across Louisiana. By eliminating unnecessary penalties and clarifying pension obligations, we are protecting taxpayer dollars while ensuring our public safety agencies remain supported and sustainable,\u201d Moreno said in a press release on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The pension system\u2019s executive director, Ben Huxen, offered a more muted comment in an email, stating only that \u201cwe really appreciate everyone working together on the legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bills must still pass the full House and Senate and receive Gov. Jeff Landry\u2019s signature before they become law. They are a linchpin of Moreno’s legislative agenda, which includes at least one other bill aimed easing the city’s financial stress. House Bill 463<\/a>, which would increase 911 service fees on monthly phone bills from $1.25 to $2.00, is now awaiting a full House vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other key parts of Moreno’s legislative agenda are still awaiting committee hearings. They include more local control of the Sewerage and Water Board and regulations on fees the city charges to external agencies for tax collections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreno and Huxen publicly exchanged pointed accusations in March after the city withheld $800,000 from retention bonuses but didn\u2019t remit those funds \u2014 along with $2.7 million in required employer contributions \u2014 to the pension system.<\/p>\n

Moreno, who said she personally halted the payments to the pension system, accused Huxen of trying to bully the city into making payments it didn\u2019t owe. Huxen in turn accused Moreno of flouting state law and improperly holding funds from police paychecks intended as pension payments, although the city later returned the $800,000 in bonus pay to officers.<\/p>\n

While the disagreement over bonus pay sparked the public feud, the partial dissolution law poses far greater consequences for New Orleans and other cities. The current law penalizes police departments that lose either 50 officers or 30% of their force in the course of a year. Bacala\u2019s bill repeals \u201cpartial dissolution\u201d as a definition in state law.<\/p>\n

Bacala said he will adopt another amendment to ensure that departments that fully dissolve still owe penalty payments to the pension system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to not penalize somebody for not being able to hire enough people. But we are going to say if Baton Rouge goes under tomorrow \u2026 that doesn\u2019t absolve the Baton Rouge Police Department of paying their portion of the debt,\u201d Bacala said.<\/p>\n

Moreno, who attended the committee meeting on Thursday, said the city has paid $25 million in recruitment and retention bonuses to beef up the NOPD, an initiative of former Mayor LaToya Cantrell that hasn\u2019t led to an increase in officers. The department continues to hover around 900 officers after precipitous declines starting in 2021, according to a City Council dashboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re making these significant investments to retain our officers, yet at the same time being penalized when we’re losing them,\u201d Moreno told the committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno\u2019s administration is close to resolving a feud with the statewide police pension system,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,22522,61,60,174,175],"class_list":{"0":"post-390879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-hardwall","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}