After a monthlong review process, the Metro Council is scheduled to vote on Mayor Kip Holden’s proposed city-parish budget for 2015 on Tuesday, while the council’s agenda for its regular meeting Wednesday, the last of the year, is relatively light.
The $830 million proposed budget has increased 2.5%, or roughly $26 million, from the current year, but most of the extra money in the proposed budget for next year comes in the form of dedicated taxes. The general fund, which includes dollars that are considered more flexible for the council to move around, makes up $306 million of the total budget. It’s only $7.5 million larger in the proposed budget than in the current year’s.
Some council members have said they’re hoping to shuffle around some general fund dollars to allow for city-parish employee pay raises, more police training, the purchase of some new police cruisers, expansion of summer youth programs and even to help fund the cash-strapped East Baton Rouge Parish Redevelopment Authority. The RDA has requested as much as $3 million in funding, but that isn’t likely to happen as Holden has been staunchly opposed to funding the agency.
It will take eight of the 12 council members to change anything in the mayor’s proposed budget at this point. The council will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday on the third floor of City Hall, 222 St. Louis St., to take up the budget. Check out Holden’s proposed budget.
At its last regular meeting of the year on Wednesday, the council could vote to finally resolve a conflict between the city-parish and the companies it contracts with to place benches at bus stops. Those companies want to be able to place benches in more profitable locations for advertising, on often highly trafficked state roads, without having to jump through too many hoops.
The last time the issue came up at a council meeting, back on Oct. 22, the bus bench companies protested a proposed $45 permit-processing fee they would have to pay the Department of Public Works for each bench they wished to place. Originally introduced in September, the item was deferred at several meetings before being taken up in October. Also Wednesday, the council will take up a vote to approve an architect to design renovations for the council chambers. Renovations include upgrades to audio-visual equipment and the council members’ voting mechanisms, which haven’t been updated in several decades. The council has budgeted $700,000 for the renovation.
The council convenes for its regular meeting at 4 p.m. on Wednesday on the third floor of City Hall. See the full agenda. —Kelly Connelly
