The Metro Council on Wednesday evening deferred action on two of the most high-profile issues on its agenda.
After failing to secure the votes necessary to equip Baton Rouge police officers with body cameras, the council ultimately deferred the issue for another meeting. Concerns over the timeline set out in the ordinance—which would have required implementation by the start of next year—as well as the cost of implementation ultimately led to the deferral.
As Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman Lt. Johnny Dunnam told Daily Report prior to the meeting on Wednesday, department officials have estimated outfitting all of its roughly 660 officers with body cameras and purchasing the necessary servers to store and analyze the data the cameras collect could cost anywhere from $1 million to $2 million.
Before deferring the issue, the council voted 6-2 in favor of the ordinance, but that was one vote shy of the seven needed for approval.
The council also deferred a vote to place on the Oct. 24 ballot a renewal of the dedicated property tax for the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System that would raise property taxes from 10.78 mills to 11.1 mills.
The library system board voted 4-2 in March to ask the council to put on a fall ballot the millage increase. As previously reported, the vote caught many off guard, as the library board—which has a surplus of $57 million—previously indicated it would be amenable to lowering its millage, something a number of Metro Council members have been urging.
The current millage generates about $40 million per year for the system. The library’s proposed budget includes renovations to four libraries and a staff increase of eight positions over the next 10 years. In voting for the tax increase, some library board members argued that keeping the property tax at 10.7 mills only would enable the system to scrape by.
The council now will take up the library system tax at its next regular meeting on Wednesday, June 10.
