CNN.com - New Orleans schools out of cash to pay teachers - Sep 14, 2005

CNN.com - New Orleans schools out of cash to pay teachers - Sep 14, 2005: "BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) -- New Orleans teachers will not get paid for periods after Hurricane Katrina because there is almost no money left in the city's strapped school system, an executive of the outside firm that runs the schools said Wednesday.

But a team of experts was set to descend on the city on Wednesday to find schools that can be reopened as soon as possible, providing the system gets emergency funding from the government to operate.

The paycheck issued this week to teachers is for the last pay period before the storm hit, said Bill Roberti, a director with the restructuring firm of Alvarez & Marsal, which runs the school system.

'This is the last payroll we will be able to issue for the time being,' Roberti said in a briefing. 'We were not able to move forward with the $50 million financing we were pursuing to keep the district afloat. We are very low on cash at this time.'

The 7,000-employee, 116-school system was already in dire financial shape before Katrina hit, which is why the firm was pursuing the $50 million finance package."