City of New Orlenas officials announced this afternoon they had successfully addressed a roughly $100 million budget shortfall after discovering several previously overlooked functions on a municipal computer.
The breakthrough reportedly came during a lengthy budget discussion in which one councilmember asked where, exactly, all the city’s money was being kept.
According to staff, the councilmember was eventually told that modern financial systems are digital and, at the most basic level, all the information stored on a computer is made up of ones and zeroes.
That explanation proved decisive.
“If we’re short $100 million, put a couple more zeroes on the number we already have,” Councilmember [NAME REDACTED AFTER REALIZING HOW DUMB THIS SOUNDED AND PROMISING TO GET OUR TRASH PICKED UP FIRST] said. “I’m honestly surprised nobody thought of this sooner.”
Staff reportedly attempted to clarify that this was not how municipal finance, computers, or numbers worked, but the meeting had already moved on.
Officials said the city then made a second major discovery after someone accidentally highlighted a line item and pressed Delete.
“We’ve been looking at this thing for weeks,” [NAME ONCE AGAIN REDACTED IN EXCHANGE FOR TWO PREPAID PARKING TICKETS] said. “Turns out you can just highlight the expensive parts, hit Delete, and boom, gone.”
The technique was reportedly tested on several departments before staff determined the budget looked significantly healthier once enough things were no longer in it.
City officials cautioned that some of the deleted items may still technically exist in real life, though they were optimistic that would be addressed during a future meeting.
The administration is now reportedly exploring several other computer-based fiscal tools, including copy and paste, Find and Replace, and Ctrl+Z, which has been reserved for emergencies.