Gov. Jeff Landry pictured as New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno speaks during the Budget Review Committee meeting Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, at the State Capitol. ORG XMIT: BAT2511121125360038
Gov. Jeff Landry showed no interest Friday in New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno’s request from the previous evening to resolve escalating differences over money and politics between the two.
Landry criticized her in a tweet Friday for seeking state approval for a bond sale for the cash-strapped city.
It confirmed to him, he wrote, that the city was treating the state “like an ATM” to balance its budget.
He added, “Please remember that the state and its citizens are not an ATM on Bourbon Street!”
Moreno responded a few hours later with a digital media post again asking to sit down with him.
“Governor, let’s find a way for New Orleans to be successful, so that the state can be successful,” she said in her office at City Hall. “As the city of New Orleans goes, so does the state of Louisiana.”
Moreno finally pushed him back.
“I’m happy to meet you anywhere, even on Bourbon Street, and you can show me your favorite ATM,” she said, barely suppressing a smile.
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Upper hand
Landry has the upper hand in this fight with Moreno because she inherited a budget deficit from her predecessor, LaToya Cantrell, and the city needs approval to borrow money or sell bonds from the State Bond Commission — which is made up of the governor’s Republican legislative allies.
On Thursday, Moreno announced that she was withdrawing the city’s request to have the State Bond Commission approve a $110 million bond sale for New Orleans next week because she had heard from Republican friends that the commission would reject the sale.
She also said that state leaders “who seek to deprive New Orleans of the means to punish, weaken or destroy it must face the harsh truth and consequences that this ultimately represents self-harm for Louisiana.”
In her social media post Friday, she included a video clip of Louisiana Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack telling Landry last year that the city would need additional funding this year.
In her letter to the governor Thursday night, she said that lack of access to the additional funding for the remainder of 2026 would force city officials to postpone infrastructure projects, make $20 million in budget cuts and continue furloughs of city employees.
“I commend the city for taking the more fiscally responsible approach now,” Landry responded in his only positive comment to Moreno in his tweet directed at her on Friday.
Waguespack, an auditor and former sheriff, said in an interview Friday that the city’s requirement to sell bonds would cost state taxpayers nothing unless, in a worst-case scenario, the city defaulted on bond payments. This would harm the overall rating of government bonds, he added.
The city’s application to the State Bond Commission, Waguespack said, “is merely legal and procedural approval; it is not financial assistance.”
Landry letter
Landry also sent a letter to state lawmakers Friday telling them he had asked Waguespack to investigate why the Sewerage & Water Board was moving so slowly on rehabilitating Decatur Street in New Orleans. Three businesses there said the delays had turned this part of the French Quarter into a ghost town and forced them to close.
Moreno also criticized the S&WB for moving too slowly to complete the work.
Jay Dardenne, a Republican who served in the state Senate and as secretary of state, lieutenant governor and then-Gov. John Bel Edwards, the top budget official, lamented Landry’s unwillingness to meet with Moreno.
“Any time one party is unwilling to talk to the other side about an issue that could be resolved, that’s not a good thing,” Dardenne said. “We should be about working together for the common good of everyone in Louisiana. That speaks for the people of New Orleans, for people who feel insulted by Republicans, and for Republicans who believe the indictment is a politically motivated attack on them.”
Dardenne was referring to the indictment against Attorney General Liz Murrill brought last week by an Orleans Parish grand jury. It has heightened tensions between New Orleans officials and Republicans elsewhere in the state.
The grand jury indicted Murrill on 16 felony counts for writing a letter to Moreno and other city officials that they described as threatening.
Landry trolled Moreno this Friday.
“I understand your desire not to exchange public letters as this appears to be a criminal offense in the city of New Orleans,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Murrill appears to remain aggrieved by the grand jury indictment.
On Thursday evening, she released a statement saying the city does not have the funds to repay the $110 million in bonds over the 16-year term.
“That request died immediately,” she said pointedly.
The attorney general’s office filed a public records request with the city on Thursday, seeking documents related to Moreno and the City Council’s decision to bolster their scarce reserves by selling revenue from the Caesars’ Casino lease for the next nine years. In return, the city received $103 million.
When asked Friday evening why her office filed the public records request, Murrill texted, “I would like to talk about this, but I have already been charged for doing my job.”
On Thursday, Landry wrote to Moreno that the deal cost the city $50 million in future lease payments, “a decision that amounts to the largest ‘pay day loan’ by a municipality in recent memory.”
Joe Giarrusso III, Moreno’s top budget official, rejected the governor’s statement and said the city was investing the Caesars’ revenue at a 3.75% interest rate.
“If the money stays in the account and earns interest for the next ten years, there is no difference between paying annually and paying as a lump sum,” he said in a text.
One Republican who expressed support for the city and Moreno was Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, who noted in his role as the state’s top tourism promoter that millions of people visit New Orleans each year.
“Mayor Moreno and her administration have worked hard to move New Orleans in the right direction,” Nungesser said in a statement Thursday evening. “We should all be focused on building on this momentum by working together. At the end of the day, it’s about doing what’s best for the people of Louisiana.”
https://www.nola.com/news/politics/jeff-landry-helena-moreno-trade-barbs-over-money-request/article_912f36c4-a439-4295-b798-e8259ee8f508.html
