Mayor LaToya Cantrell's travel expenses continue to mount, even as administration officials this week say the city has imposed a hiring freeze because of budget concerns.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s trip to the French Riviera last month cost more than $50,000, but it is still unclear if taxpayers foot the entire bill.

More than a month after requiring a public records request for the public to learn who traveled with Cantrell to Nice, the city’s law department released the names and travel expenses. The entourage included Robert Monlyn for executive protection, Rosine Pema Sanga with intergovernmental relations and Austin Feldbaum with the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

“She’s traveling out of the country. You know, the normal security engagement rules don’t apply,” said Dillard University political analyst Robert Collins. “A New Orleans police officer cannot even carry their weapon through customs when they go to a foreign country.”

Cantrell and her delegation took part in the United Nations Ocean Rise & Coastal Summit, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. Records show the mayor, her security detail and NOHSEP flew first class in and out of New Orleans and business class on the connecting flights to and from France.

Receipts show the upgraded flights cost more than $9,800 per person. Flight records provided for Sanga were limited.

While in France, Cantrell and her team stayed at the Villa Victoria. The mayor stayed in a superior room with a double bed at $552 per night. The rest of her team stayed in a superior room with twin beds for $529 per night.

“If this truly was official travel, which is what I believe the mayor’s office is going to argue, then you should always use the least-expensive flights, the least-expensive rooms,” Collins said. “You’re on a business trip. It’s not a vacation.”

Fox 8 asked city employees, including Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano and members of the mayor’s communications team, if the conference covered any of Cantrell’s travel expenses, or if city taxpayers were footing the bill.

Instead of answering directly, the mayor’s office again said to file a public records request.

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“If you don’t have anything to hide when a member of the media or even a member of the public asks a question about the allocation of funds, you should just state, ‘This is how we spend the money. This is who paid for the trip. This is where the money came from,’” Collins said.

The expenses so far provided by the city show the trip to France cost more than $49,500, with nearly $5,000 more in personal reimbursements.

“If the mayor is going to spend thousands of dollars of taxpayer money sending herself and several city employees to France, she owes an explanation to the taxpayers,” Collins said.

In the last two years, Cantrell also has traveled abroad to South Korea, Africa, Dubai, Canada and Qatar.