NEW ORLEANS - Executive Order HM 26-13, which Mayor Helena Moreno issued on Jan. 12, reorganizes the city’s climate, resilience and sustainability work by dispersing the functions of the Office of Resilience and Sustainability (ORS) across multiple city government departments. The move comes as Moreno takes office amid a significant inherited budget shortfall, driving efforts to tighten spending and restructure city operations.
The order assigns climate, resilience and sustainability responsibilities and staff to departments including the Chief Administrative Office, the City Planning Commission and the Department of Public Works.
“These executive orders represent our commitment to good governance, fiscal responsibility, and improving the quality of life for all New Orleans residents,” Moreno said in a statement announcing the package of executive orders. “From ensuring our streets are properly maintained to creating respectful workplace environments, these directives establish a clear path forward for my administration.”
According to the order, the reorganization is intended to embed climate, resilience and sustainability work into the city’s core operations rather than maintaining it as a separate function within a single office. The stated goal is to integrate resilience and sustainability considerations directly into capital planning, land-use decisions, infrastructure projects, grant management, and fleet and energy initiatives.
To coordinate that work across departments, the order establishes a Resilience Coordination Council, which will operate under the oversight of the Chief Administrative Office and be led by Joe Giarrusso, Moreno’s first deputy mayor and Chief Administrative Officer. The council is charged with aligning resilience and sustainability initiatives citywide and ensuring coordination among departments now responsible for functions previously housed within ORS.
In effect, the order replaces a centralized resilience office with a decentralized governance model, pairing dispersed departmental responsibility with centralized coordination through the CAO’s office.
Opposition Emerges Over Resilience Reorganization
The reorganization has drawn criticism from climate and sustainability advocates, including a Change.org petition launched days before the executive order was issued.
Titled “Save the New Orleans Office of Resilience & Sustainability (ORS),” the petition was created on Jan. 10 by Jackson Voss, who identifies himself as a member of the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Climate & Sustainability Subcommittee of the New Orleans transition team.
The petition says members of the incoming Helena Moreno administration informed many city employees they would not be retained, effectively laying off much of ORS’s energy and climate staff as the office is “functionally dissolved,” a move organizers say contradicts transition team recommendations to strengthen ORS or elevate it to a cabinet-level agency.
“ORS is an incredibly important office; it’s essential that we help our elected officials understand that the planned ‘reorganization’ and termination of staff will make it incredibly difficult for its important work to continue,” Voss said. “Whatever happens next, the work goes on, because New Orleans is worth fighting for,” he added in a petition update.
The petition calls the reorganization a “profound misstep,” arguing that ORS has played a central role in New Orleans’ climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, including securing more than $150 million in private and federal funding since 2023. It describes the idea that ORS’s work can be reassigned across City Hall while reducing staff as “nonsensical,” and urges the mayor to reverse course, protect the office, and “make its best effort to bring back the incredible people who were working there until very recently.”
In a letter addressed to Mayor Helena Moreno and members of the City Council, transition team subcommittee members and local advocates warned that budget-driven staff cuts could ultimately prove more costly. “Whatever savings might be realized in cutting ORS staff now would be dwarfed by the exponential costs that New Orleans will incur in failing to properly address its growing climate vulnerabilities,” the letter states.
The petition further contends that ORS is essential to ongoing and planned climate initiatives, including updates to the city’s Climate Action Plan, energy benchmarking and greenhouse gas inventory work, and warns that redistributing staff and responsibilities could slow progress and jeopardize relationships with funders.
As of its posting, the petition had garnered more than 1,350 verified signatures. The petition is scheduled to be formally delivered to elected leaders on Jan. 14 at City Hall.
