New Orleans City Hall has a phantom Department of Miscellaneous
by Bruce Eggler - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Every year or two, a New Orleans City Council member comes up against the fact that the city's budget contains a Department of Miscellaneous, and his or her head begins to spin. For Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, that moment came Thursday. The council was considering an ordinance to set the salary range for the job of deputy chief information officer, and Palmer wanted to know both why it will be part of the Department of Miscellaneous and why it will be unclassified, meaning a mayoral appointment and not a civil service position. It turned out the answers were related. The city's information technology office actually is part of the chief administrative office, but under state law a City Charter-designated department like the CAO can have only three unclassified positions -- a requirement put in place to keep local governments from circumventing the civil service system. However, the director and deputy director positions in all departments are unclassified -- an arrangement that lets mayors put their own people in policy-making positions.