While New Orleans is looking for ways to cut the budget this year to make up for revenue lost amid the coronavirus pandemic, its budget estimators are warning next year could be bad, too. The problem is, they don't know how bad.
New Orleans officials say even as the city reopens in its staged approach to phase three, some customers just won't come back until there's a vaccine against the pandemic.
"There is a fixed percentage that hasn't really changed much over surveys that say, pretty clearly, 'I will not do X,'" New Orleans Health Director Dr. Jennifer Avegno told the city's revenue estimating conference. "There's a fixed percentage of people who are not going to get on an airplane, who are not going to come to a hotel, who are not going to come to a restaurant. Some of them live in the city, some of them do not."
Not nearly as many tourists are coming to town, conventions aren't booking, and city officials say that makes it hard to peg a budget for next year.
"There's just a huge amount of uncertainty in conditions, what conditions are now, what they will be in a month, what they will be in a year," said Randall McCoy with the city finance department, "really not like anything in living memory."
