Scandal-plagued New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is facing new questions about her personal use of three city-owned luxury vehicles as the city finds itself eyeing a $226 million budget deficit.

The Democrat‘s administration has faced scrutiny all year about its finances, with tensions escalating when city councilmembers declared in October that the Bayou was out of cash.

Incoming Mayor Helena Moreno is now planning on taking a number of measures to claw the city out of debt – and has taken particular aim at Cantrell’s fleet of take-home vehicles. 

‘I can tell you that I’m getting rid of three of the mayor’s cars,’ she vowed to the Times-Picayune, noting that the mayor’s fleet included three cars used by Cantrell herself and one used by her senior advisor, Julius Feltus.

‘I don’t know why she needs four,’ Moreno remarked.

Cantrell later confirmed that she has three city vehicles – ‘two large vehicles and one sedan’ – but did not address whether her senior advisor also had a city-owned vehicle.

It is unclear what vehicles the embattled mayor has, but city records obtained by the Times-Picayune in 2020 show she was assigned a 2018 Lincoln Continental, a 2018 Chevrolet Suburban and a 2020 Chevrolet Suburban. 

Cantrell now says the variety of vehicles is necessary, as she hit out at Moreno, who takes office on January 12.

‘Unfortunately, the Mayor-Elect doesn’t know what she doesn’t know and seems to lack a humility to ask or care about the truth; all spin and very sad,’ Cantrell said. 

‘I have a family,’ she continued. ‘Depending on the event, attire or who I may be hosting as a guest(s), the adaptability of the fleet has been very useful.

‘Every mayor is different, along with their circumstances,’ she said, as she framed her personal use of city-owned vehicles as a security measure.

‘Safety and protection concerns can be an issue when the public is aware of the mayor’s official vehicles,’ Cantrell said. ‘In addition, when wrong… information is shared with the public, it has the potential to cause harm.’

Moreno, who serves as City Council president, had a sheriff’s deputy removed from her security team by Cantrell in what she called an act of political retribution back in 2022. 

She was stunned by the mayor’s response.

‘What do I even say to that?’ she asked the Times-Picayune, rhetorically. ‘How many times can I say… “I’m disappointed.”‘  

The spat over the vehicles is just the most recent clash between Cantrell and her successor.

On Monday, the two sparred over Moreno’s proposal to replace Cantrell’s former budget proposal.

Cantrell claimed the council failed to do its due diligence in vetting Moreno’s spending plan for 2026, which had to overcome the massive deficit.

‘This presentation is not ready for public consumption and it wouldn’t be prudent in our practices,’ she told the city council, according to WVUE.

But Moreno vowed that the budget process under her administration will be more transparent as city officials fine tune the spending plan – which includes furloughs for 720 employees – in the months ahead.

Her remarks came as it was revealed that Cantrell’s administration quietly drained more than $120 million from its now-depleted general fund to cover repair costs that could have been reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The federal agency had allocated nearly $2 billion into the city’s Joint Infrastructure Recovery Request Program following Hurricane Katrina to reconstruct 10,000 blocks of roadways and subterranean pipes across the city.

But even with the federal funding available, city officials pulled millions of dollars from the general fund as the city’s cash balance collapsed over the summer, WWL-TV reports.

Financial ledgers and emails obtained by the outlet found that by February 20 – when city councilmembers publicly pressed the administration to explain why the city was struggling to pay bills – the Cantrell administration had already spent more than $71.4 million on JIRR without getting an advance or reimbursement from the federal government.

Then, at the February 20 Budget Committee meeting, Council Budget Chairman Joe Giarusso lamented that he could not get clear answers from top officials about the financial strain as he announced: ‘We cannot pay our bills.’

Still, WWL reports, the city did not even ask FEMA for payment until April 23 – by which point the deficit had climbed above $71 million.

Finally on June 13, LaNitra Hasan, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, acknowledged in a letter to state officials that JIRR had run a $96 million deficit and was putting a ‘strain on the city’s financial resources.’

But Council President KP Morrell said the administration still failed to disclose the crisis to the council or the public.

At that point, he said, ‘they know internally…. they have caused a cash shortfall, but no one’s telling the council or the public, which is a huge problem.’

It was only in mid-June that the administration found a way to shift the JIRR expenses int capital fund bonds to replenish the depleted general fund.

Hasan and Kyle Homan, the city’s capital projects director, have since argued that because the fund was replenished, the use of general fund money to cover JIRR expenses did not play a significant role in the city running out of cash in October.

But Morrell disagreed.

‘Once they had emptied out the bank account, it caused a cascade of different effects that are still affecting the city today.’

He and other city councilmembers now say the hidden deficit was a major factor forcing the city to borrow a whopping $125 million to make payroll and stabilize cash flow.

Meanwhile, Cantrell is facing a federal indictment for what prosecutors have claimed was a years-long scheme to use taxpayer dollars to hide a romantic relationship with her bodyguard.

She was charged over the summer with federal counts of conspiracy, fraud and obstruction.

Prosecutors claimed her police officer bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, was being paid as if he was working when they met alone in apartments and spent $70,000 in city dollars to go on romantic trips.

They are also accused of exchanging encrypted messages through WhatsApp to avoid detection and then deleting the conversations. 

The mayor and Vappie had previously said their relationship was strictly professional, but the indictment portrayed it as ‘personal and intimate.’ 

Cantrell and Vappie are accused of developing an intimate relationship as early as October 2021. Notably, Cantrell was married at the time, before her husband, attorney Jason Cantrell, died of a heart attack in 2023.

In a WhatsApp exchange, the indictment says, Vappie reminisced about accompanying Cantrell to Scotland in October 2021, saying that was ‘where it all started.’

Cantrell had told local reporters she needed a security detail ‘due to COVID,’ saying her travel accommodations were ‘a matter of safety, not of luxury.’

The mayor argued following the indictment that she was being unfairly targeted as a black woman and held to a different standard than male officials.

She had made similar claims years earlier when she declared that economy class flights are unsafe for black women.

‘My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury,’ she told reporters in 2022.

‘As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone.

‘As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be. 

‘Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world black women walk in.’

The mayor then defended her decision not to repay the cost of a luxury American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles Airport to Switzerland in July in which she spent about $10,000, and for a similar first-class return flight from France while her aides sat in coach.