The Build Baton Rouge board of directors approved a budget for 2020 that falls some $189,300 short of what the agency needs to stay afloat for the next 12 months.
The $2.4 million budget projects the parish redevelopment authority will run out of money Sept. 30 unless additional funds are identified.
The main reason for the shortfall is that the agency remains heavily dependent on funding from the cash-strapped city-parish, which was only able to provide $525,000 of the $880,000 Build Baton Rouge requested for the year ahead.
As dire as the situation appears on paper, Build Baton Rouge Executive Director Chris Tyson says his agency is continuing to work with the city-parish and other community partners in search of additional funding.
City-Parish Chief Administrative Officer Darryl Gissel, meanwhile, says the administration will not let the agency run out of money.
“Build Baton Rouge is a vital conduit for this administration’s commitment to reinvesting and uplifting disinvested communities,” Gissel says. “The mayor is committed to identifying the resources necessary for Build Baton Rouge to succeed in its mission. The city will not abandon Build Baton Rouge.”
He was not able to say where those resources might come from.
The current budget situation underscores the challenges the agency has faced in its 11-year history as well as the financial difficulties of doing redevelopment in a city with thousands of blighted properties.
In 2014, the agency, then called the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority, nearly folded and for several years operated on a shoestring budget with a staff of just three.
But the agency’s fortunes improved under Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, who gave the agency control over the federal Housing and Urban Development grant programs that previously had been administered by the city’s Office of Community Development.
But while that enabled Build Baton Rouge to expand, the dollars that come with the HUD programs are restricted and cannot be used for other Build Baton Rouge projects.
The funding challenges come as Build Baton Rouge has made progress on several fronts. In the past year, the agency completed a strategic plan for the Plank Road corridor, received grant funding to develop Bus Rapid Transit along that corridor and received funding from HUD through its Choice Neighborhood Initiatives. The agency also secured an $800,000 line of credit from the Capital Area Finance Authority to engage in land-banking activity and applied for federal New Markets Tax Credits, which will be awarded in spring 2020.
Build Baton Rouge Board Chairman Rodney Braxton says he feels good about the progress the agency has made and is optimistic it will find the funding it needs.
“We’re going to be able to crush that number,” he says.
