Jimmy Clarke, Governor Blanco’s Chief of Staff said, “There will be one-point-six million dollars provided in bridge funding to the d-a’s office for their operations. At the end of their three years they will be expected to either pay it back or come back to this committee for a structural agreement.”

That was the final vote after a joint committee spent hours in Baton Rouge discussing whether the Orleans Parish D.A.’s office deserves a bailout of it’s current financial situation.

State Senator Diane Bajoie said, “It’s always very difficult when you’re talking about a bailout and a lot of people feel as though it’s probably something that never should have happened, and it probably shouldn’t have but it did and I don’t think you penalize the citizens of New Orleans and the new D.A.”
 
The former D.A., Eddie Jordan, left the office with a federal discrimination judgement hanging overhead. Without help, workers have said the D.A.’s office would shut down and so would the criminal justice system in the city.

However, with today’s vote, Interim D.A. Keva Landrum Johnson is confident this bridge money will be enough to get the office through to the other side, “I think that the idea is to give us three years to build the office so that it can be stable to raise the type of revenue that after that three year period we would be in a position to pay that loan.”

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