Katrina Coverage

From New Orleans mayor seeks aid, loans for shortfall:
New Orleans is seeking federal aid and new loans to ride out a $204 million budget shortfall caused by the expected loss of all property tax revenue in the short term, the city's mayor said on Thursday.
"If we project out based on maintaining essential personnel and essential services throughout the year, the amount of money we're borrowing still leaves a gap of about $204 million," Nagin told Reuters in an interview.
"We're not bankrupt. We've been out of cash. We have a liquidity problem. But we have been careful to make sure that we continue to pay our debt service, which would cause all sorts of problems," Nagin said...
New Orleans has over $530 million in general obligation bonds outstanding and $155 million in pension bonds, according to Standard & Poor's Ratings Services. Related entities such as the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority and the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board also have outstanding debt.
Nagin said that although aid had been slow in coming, the city was in the process of applying for $120 million in federal borrowing under the Community Disaster Loan program.
Forced to try to woo major businesses back to the city, Nagin said executives have told him they needed to see a strengthened levee system, better schools and streamlined government in order to invest again.
"They don't want to see the bloated government that we had in the past," said Nagin, a former cable television executive who faces a possible primary election in February.
"Bloated" is one way to put it I guess.