INFRASTRUCTURE | NEWS
As the New Orleans City Council prepares to take budget and oversight control of the Sewerage and Water Board on Aug. 1, its president has floated eliminating the utility’s highest-paid position. The agency’s response, published this week, was a detailed recitation of Executive Director Randy Hayman’s career.
Kim M. Braud | July 28, 2026
Council President JP Morrell first raised the idea at a July 20 community coffee event in Lakeview, where he and Councilmember Aimee McCarron told residents the council would explore whether the S&WB still needs an executive director. The comments were first reported by Gambit. Morrell said the council plans to bring in a third party to help decide whether to cut the job, and he called the salary, reported at $427,000 by The Times-Picayune, “a waste of money.” In other remarks he has put the figure closer to half a million dollars, comparing it unfavorably to the pay of state department heads and, pointedly, LSU football coaches.
“I don’t see what this person does other than occasionally go on TV and try to make you feel better,” Morrell said of the role.
A tense committee meeting
Two days later, at a July 22 Utility Committee meeting, council members pressed S&WB leaders on whether the July 11 flooding was the result of a single staff error, as the agency has said, or a deeper failure of management and training. Morrell accused the utility of offering thin answers instead of solutions. When agency leaders treated council suggestions as helpful ideas, he pushed back, saying the council’s job is not to hand the S&WB fixes it should be generating on its own. Council Vice President Matthew Willard added that the best technology is no substitute for common sense.
Through much of that meeting, operational questions went not to Hayman but to General Superintendent Kaitlin Tymrak, who fielded the specifics on the pump failure, staff training and station staffing.
The events behind the scrutiny
The pressure follows a difficult stretch for the utility. On July 11, thunderstorms dropped more than 3.5 inches of rain in about an hour across the Carrollton, Hollygrove and Uptown areas. At the Marconi Drive pump station, officials said an employee error took all three pumps offline for the better part of an hour as water rose six feet in 20 minutes. Hayman told the council the incident remained under investigation and that no one had been disciplined. The flood came weeks after the agency’s new $300 million power complex faltered during its first major storm test.
Hayman defends the job and his record
Hayman, who has held the position for a year this month, defended both the role and his tenure after the meeting. He said the utility needs an executive director who oversees the entire organization, and he pointed to a track record spanning more than two decades in water and wastewater management.
On Monday, July 27, the S&WB put that argument in writing. In a press release built around Hayman’s “nationally recognized leadership,” the agency laid out his current work in New Orleans alongside earlier posts as commissioner and CEO of the Philadelphia Water Department, general counsel at DC Water, and general counsel at the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District. The document credits him with advancing the $300 million power complex, a Water Quality Master Plan valued in the billions, lead service line replacement funding, and the utility’s Promise Pay assistance program, which it says has prevented thousands of shutoffs. It closes with a list of industry awards, national board memberships, and degrees from the University of Michigan and Georgetown University Law Center.
The release did not mention the council’s proposal or the July 11 flooding.
What is actually on the table
Whether Morrell’s idea becomes policy remains an open question. The ordinance he described is still in draft form and has not been formally introduced. McCarron has said the concept has not been broadly discussed among council members, and that removing or replacing the executive director would still move through the S&WB board, where Mayor Helena Moreno serves as president, before returning to the council for final approval.
What shifts on Aug. 1 is the balance of power.
Under Act 938, the state law New Orleans officials requested, the council gains authority over the S&WB budget and can pursue further changes, including giving the mayor appointing power over the agency’s 11-member board. Morrell has also suggested the utility’s superintendent could report directly to a deputy mayor, a structure that would leave no need for an executive director at all.
“My time is better spent focusing on what’s going to take place within the next nine days when this council will actually have the power to do something about these things,”
Councilmember Jason Hughes said at the committee meeting, promising that the council would put its words into action.
How to follow this
The council assumes budget and oversight authority over the Sewerage and Water Board on Aug. 1 under Act 938. Watch for the draft ordinance on the executive director position to be formally introduced, and for the third-party review Morrell has said the council will commission. Utility Committee meetings are the venue where these questions are being aired in public; agendas and minutes are posted through the council’s and the S&WB’s meeting calendars.
Kim M. Braud is the Founder & Editor of Evans Cutchmore Press, an independent newsroom covering Louisiana and the Gulf South. Her reporting focuses on government accountability, infrastructure, business, culture, and the public policies that shape communities. Her work combines investigative journalism, public records research, and documentary storytelling.
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