The budget of New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority for 2020 has jumped to $109-million.
The nearly $9-million dollar hike is comes from the hiring of over 70 new employees hired after August 31st.
According to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reports that’s after the City stripped private operator Transdev of most of its control over the transit system.
$8.3-million of the money will go directly to pay the salary of 75 new employees, including CEO Alex Wiggins’ salary of $225,000.
Some RTA Board Members are not happy with having to pump more money into the system.
The announcement on the new budget sparked a response from Laura Bryan, director of Mayor Cantrell’s Office of Transportation: "I want to make sure there's no redundancies between the staff at RTA and the staff at Transdev,"
RTA Board members and other department heads will meet with Transdev to discuss changes and places where budget cutting can take place.
The $109-million dollar budget comes as the authority is paid $107-million in operating revenue. The authority’s overall budget totals around $181-million considering capital projects, debt payments, and refinances bonds.