Baton Rouge’s Plan of Government is nearly 80 years old. Does it still hold up?

When East Baton Rouge Parish voters approved a consolidated city-parish government in the late 1940s, Baton Rouge was the parish’s unquestioned center of gravity.

The surrounding areas were largely rural and unincorporated, and the logic behind unifying city and parish functions under a single government was relatively straightforward: Eliminate service duplication, increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Nearly eight decades later, the parish bears little resemblance to the one that embraced consolidation.

What exists today is a patchwork of increasingly independent municipalities. In addition to the city of Baton Rouge, the parish is home to Baker, Central, Zachary and now St. George, each with its own mayor, city council and approach to service delivery. The set of functions those cities rely on the parish for is ever narrowing. At the same time, the city-parish is facing mounting fiscal pressure as revenue shifts tied to St. George’s incorporation shrink its general fund.

As Business Report writes in its latest issue, the current state of affairs has brought renewed scrutiny to the city-parish’s foundational governing document, or Plan of Government. Adopted in 1947, the document lays out Baton Rouge’s consolidated form of government, under which the city and the parish operate under a single mayor-president and council.

Among those at the heart of that discussion is District 3 Metro Council member Rowdy Gaudet, who believes now is the right time to revisit the Plan of Government and take a long, hard look at whether the current model still holds up.

While Gaudet says moving away from consolidation “shouldn’t be off the table,” he doesn’t want to rush toward any single reform. Instead, he’d like to see officials begin the review process with an open mind, seeking to answer one fundamental question.

“The ultimate question is, with the current structure of what is unincorporated area and what is city of Baton Rouge, what kind of government would best serve that,” Gaudet says. “Maybe it’s the current kind of government, and maybe it’s something different.”

Read the full story from the latest issue of Business Report.