NEW ORLEANS - The highly successful and much celebrated expanded sanitation services in the French Quarter may soon be coming to an end, as the Nagin administration put out a memo saying New Orleans no longer has the money to pay for the services.

It is ordering SDT Waste and Debris to stop litter can patrols, mechanical sweeping and street and sidewalk washing at the end of the month. The services cost the city about $3 million a year.

"We've been very straight forward about this," said Mayor Ray Nagin. "It seems as though the city is not in a position to continue to afford those enhanced, Disney-like services and we're going to make the adjustment."

Tuesday, Mayor Nagin’s office put a memo ordering SDT to stop the so-called “expanded sanitation services” January 31.  The mayor cut the services to help plug an $18 million hole in this year’s budget.

The City Council hopes to reach a compromise to save the services when they meet to finalize the budget Thursday.

"This is as clean as the city has ever been," said Clarkson. "We're paying for it dearly, but we have to do it."

New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Steve Perry agrees. He says cutting the expanded sanitation services in the Quarter would send the wrong signal to potential visitors.

"When the city doesn't look tidy, that indicates that there are other problems," said Perry. "We want to make sure that the condition of the Quarter is the very best it can be and we're going to find a solution with them."

SDT owner Sidney Torres, III says if the services are discontinued he would have to lay off 75 employees and sell $3 million worth of equipment they are now using.

"Men and women who are on the golf carts that run around the entire French Quarter picking up cups, bottles, cigarette butts all of that will be discontinued and, of course, the pressure washing of the sidewalks and the streets and the flushing and sidewalks and streets," said Torres.

Torres says he feels like his company is caught in the middle of a budget tug of war between the mayor and City Council.

"It is a personal thing for me because I've put my heart into it and I'm really hopeful they can work this situation out," said Torres.

The City Council is expected to meet Thursday morning to finalize changes to the 2009 spending plan.

Clarkson says she hopes that between now and then city government can find some way to save the expanded sanitation services in the Quarter.

Mayor Nagin says until the budget is fully implemented, all new contracts at city hall are frozen.