Two days after City Council President JP Morrell sharply criticized the Sewerage & Water Board executive director’s performance, and less than a week before the council gains sweeping new oversight powers over the utility, SWBNO used its official website to publish an unusually detailed account of Hayman’s career and accomplishments.
On Monday afternoon, the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans published a press release with an unusual purpose. It did not announce a new infrastructure project, a boil-water advisory, a construction update or a change in utility operations. Instead, the agency devoted an official press release to Executive Director Randy Hayman’s credentials, accomplishments and decades-long employment history.
The release, published at 4:28 p.m. on July 27, is titled “Executive Director Hayman Brings Nationally Recognized Leadership in Water, Environmental Law and Public Infrastructure.” After two introductory paragraphs describing Hayman as a national leader in the field, it reads much like a résumé. It begins with his current position at SWBNO, proceeds through his years running the Philadelphia Water Department and serving as general counsel at DC Water and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, and concludes with a list of professional awards and other biographical details.
There is nothing inherently improper about a public agency highlighting the qualifications of one of its executives. What makes this particular release noteworthy is when it appeared. Two days earlier, FOX 8 reportedFOX 8 reported that members of the New Orleans City Council were already discussing changes at the top of SWBNO as they prepared to assume much greater oversight of the agency. Council President JP Morrell singled out Hayman’s performance and compensation for particularly sharp criticism.
“The head of the SWB makes a half a million dollars,” Morrell told FOX 8. “That’s more than the head of all state departments.” He went on to compare Hayman’s performance to that of LSU football coaches, saying the university had fired coaches “for less than the job Randy Hayman’s done in the last six months.” Hayman’s actual annual salary is $427,000, a figure SWBNO confirmed when he was hired last year.
The criticism is landing at a particularly consequential moment. On August 1, Act 938 takes effect, significantly changing the relationship between the City Council and an agency that has long frustrated New Orleans residents while operating under an unusual governance structure. The law, which began as House Bill 1243 and became law without Gov. Jeff Landry’s signature, gives the council broad regulatory and oversight authority over SWBNO.
Under the enacted law, that authority includes rates and fees, annual operating budgets, capital budgets and improvement plans, policies involving billing, finance, operations and governance, contracts and the election of the executive director and hiring of board employees. The council will also have authority to investigate matters within its regulatory jurisdiction, including catastrophic failures of the city’s sewerage and drainage infrastructure. The SWBNO board retains the power to elect or remove the executive director, who serves at its pleasure, but the council will now have approval authority over the election of an executive director.
That puts Hayman’s future squarely inside a new political landscape. The people publicly questioning his performance are days away from acquiring powers over SWBNO that the City Council has never had before, including a direct role in the selection of the person occupying Hayman’s position. Against that backdrop, the decision to publish a detailed account of Hayman’s career deserves attention.
A Résumé at a Politically Convenient Moment
SWBNO’s release describes Hayman as “one of the nation’s leaders in public utilities, environmental law, and infrastructure management” and credits him with more than three decades of executive, legal and operational experience. Under his New Orleans tenure, it lists the completion of the final stages of the $300 million Power Complex, completion of a $2 billion Water Quality Master Plan, creation of an Immediate Action Plan addressing deteriorating water transmission mains, progress on smart meters, technology modernization and the closing of nearly 34,000 water, sewer and paving work orders. The release also credits Hayman with expanding customer assistance efforts, advancing legislation involving lead service lines and overseeing other infrastructure and operational initiatives.
The document then goes far beyond his first year in New Orleans. It recounts his six years as commissioner and CEO of the Philadelphia Water Department, his tenure as general counsel of DC Water and a decade as general counsel of the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District. It describes budgets and capital programs he oversaw, legal matters he handled and projects he worked on, followed by a list of awards dating back nearly two decades.
Hayman’s background, however, was hardly unknown. When SWBNO announced him as a finalist for the executive director position in April 2025, the agency highlighted his leadership of Philadelphia Water along with his previous work at DC Water and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District. When it announced his selection later that month and again when he officially began the job in July 2025, SWBNO publicly described much of the same professional history.
What is different now is the context. SWBNO has assembled Hayman’s credentials and accomplishments into a lengthy public document at the same time his performance and future are being openly questioned. The release does not explain why the agency chose this particular moment to publish it, and there is currently no evidence establishing that it was prepared in response to Morrell’s comments or the approaching change in oversight. But the timing leaves an obvious unanswered question: Why now?
A Difficult Stretch for SWBNO
Hayman’s problems did not begin with Morrell’s comments. The past several months have brought repeated scrutiny of the utility’s water, power and drainage systems, often accompanied by increasingly public frustration from members of the City Council.
Repeated water-main failures earlier this year exposed the vulnerability of the city’s aging water system and prompted council members to demand a more aggressive response. At a March council meeting, Morrell questioned the urgency of SWBNO’s response as the agency worked through major repairs and boil-water problems. Council members also pressed the utility over an action plan that contemplated hundreds of millions of dollars in work stretching years into the future while residents and businesses were dealing with immediate disruptions.
The utility’s new Power Complex, one of the most expensive and important infrastructure projects in recent New Orleans history, has created another problem for SWBNO leadership. The roughly $300 million facility was intended to provide reliable power to the city’s drainage pumps and reduce dependence on the antiquated system that has contributed to drainage failures for years. Yet FOX 8 reported in June that the new system had failed twice within roughly a month and a half. During Tropical Storm Arthur, a one-second voltage drop caused seven pumps to shut down for nearly an hour as heavy rain fell across the city. Council members also criticized SWBNO after learning that they had not been told about a similar shutdown in May.
Then came the July 11 flooding. Heavy rainfall overwhelmed parts of New Orleans, but the amount of rain was not the entire story. SWBNO acknowledged that human error contributed to a 45-minute disruption at Drainage Pump Station 7 near City Park. One pump initially operated as expected, but problems arose as workers attempted to activate the other two. Water at the station rose six feet in 20 minutes, and SWBNO said the delay contributed to elevated water in lower Lakeview, Mid-City and around City Park for roughly 90 minutes. Hayman subsequently said the agency was reviewing procedures, training and protocols.
The institutional response also drew criticism. At the first SWBNO board meeting following the flooding, FOX 8 reported that board members asked Hayman no questions after his report on what had happened, prompting concerns about whether the board charged with overseeing the utility was exercising meaningful oversight.
For New Orleans residents, these episodes arrive on top of much older frustrations involving billing, drainage, broken pipes, street repairs and the basic reliability of a utility that controls infrastructure essential to the city’s survival. Hayman inherited many of those problems. He did not create New Orleans’ century-old pipes or its notoriously complicated drainage and power systems, and any serious assessment of his performance has to account for the condition of the institution he took over. The question facing city leaders is not whether every SWBNO failure began with Hayman, but whether the agency has improved enough under his leadership to justify keeping him at the helm.
How Much of Hayman’s Record Did He Inherit?
That question makes the accomplishment list in Monday’s release worth examining on its own terms. Some of the most prominent items attributed to Hayman involve major initiatives that were already underway before he arrived in New Orleans.
The Power Complex is the clearest example. Monday’s release carefully says Hayman “completed the final stages” of the $300 million project rather than claiming that it originated under his leadership. He did, in fact, oversee its completion, but the project had been years in the making before Hayman became executive director. SWBNO’s own April 2025 announcement of his hiring described the utility as being on the verge of major infrastructure milestones, and the agency had already been pursuing smart-meter modernization before he took office.
That distinction does not erase Hayman’s role. Executives routinely inherit enormous projects and bear responsibility for successfully completing them. But it does complicate any attempt to use a list of completed projects as a straightforward measure of one executive’s performance, particularly when that list is being published during a fight over his future. A meaningful evaluation would have to separate programs Hayman initiated from those he inherited, determine what changed under his leadership and measure the condition of the utility when he arrived against where it stands today.
There are accomplishments in the release that deserve that same examination rather than automatic dismissal. SWBNO credits Hayman’s tenure with work on customer affordability, water-system planning, lead-line replacement, technology modernization and tens of thousands of completed work orders. If those efforts have materially improved the utility, that belongs in any fair accounting of his first year. The same standard applies to the failures: the relevant question is what Hayman controlled, what he inherited and how effectively he responded when things went wrong.
August 1 Changes the Equation
For years, accountability for SWBNO has been difficult for residents to untangle. The utility had its own board and powers established under state law, while City Council members regularly held hearings, questioned officials and fielded complaints from constituents without possessing the kind of direct regulatory authority they exercise over other utilities.
Act 938 substantially changes that arrangement. Beginning August 1, the council will be able to require approval of SWBNO rates, budgets, capital plans, major policies and contracts. The law expressly includes council authority over the election of the executive director, while leaving the board with the statutory power to elect and remove that executive. It also gives the council investigative authority within the scope of its new regulatory powers.
That means accountability will become harder to diffuse. SWBNO leadership will face a council with considerably more power to demand changes, but the council will also have greater responsibility for what happens next. If elected officials believe the utility is poorly managed, they will have more tools to do something about it. If they believe Hayman is the right person to lead SWBNO through its enormous infrastructure problems, they will have to defend that judgment as well.
Hayman may have a compelling case to make. His career before New Orleans is extensive, and Monday’s release presents a long list of work SWBNO says has been accomplished during his first year. Morrell and other council members clearly have a different assessment of the utility’s recent performance. Both sides will soon be operating under a governance structure that gives that disagreement considerably greater consequence.
What remains unexplained is why SWBNO decided that Monday afternoon, two days after Morrell’s remarks and days before Act 938 takes effect, was the moment to publish an extensive account of its executive director’s qualifications and accomplishments. Perhaps the document had been planned well before the latest criticism. Perhaps SWBNO believed Hayman’s record needed to be placed before the public after months in which failures received most of the attention. Perhaps there is another explanation entirely.
SWBNO’s release does not say. Until the agency explains who initiated it and why it was published when it was, the timing will remain part of the story.
