“I wouldn’t say it was surprising,” said Mayor Ed Gainey’s press secretary, Maria Montaño. “Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act, it really helped us” keep a balanced budget. “We do expect the revenues to recover this year, depending on the course of the pandemic.”

City Controller Michael Lamb said he too was unsurprised by the results, citing the pandemic’s persistent drag on the economy. “We had the continuation of the pandemic and in some places continuations of shutdowns. We were hoping to be back stronger in the fourth quarter than we were.”

Lamb cautioned that the numbers are unaudited and could be adjusted before they are final. 

The parking tax was one of the city’s biggest fiscal disappointments of 2021: It brought in 42% less money than it was projected to in the 2021 budget, a shortfall of almost $23 million. 

Lamb said he grew skeptical of the former administration’s parking tax revenue projection when the city was far off its target midway through 2021. 

“We raised an issue with the reasonableness of the projection they had with regard to parking tax, which we just thought was an unreasonable number,” Lamb said. “They projected a number above $50 million and we knew it would be much closer to $30 million.”

The final number in the report is about $32 million.

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