A year ago, Sid Edwards was a football coach preparing his Istrouma Indians for the season ahead. He’s in a different game today, leading the city-parish government as mayor, and his current opponent is a budget that doesn’t add up, Rolfe McCollister writes in his latest column.
The team assembled to tackle this Crimson Tide-sized behemoth, he argues, consists of his staff and the Metro Council, with the coach-turned-mayor dipping into the portal to seek help from the library system, the local Council on Aging, and the parish agency responsible for dealing with mosquitoes and rodents. “Edwards is also counting on influential members of the business community to get out of their C-suites and cheerlead for his tax-renewal-and-redirection game plan known as Thrive EBR,” McCollister writes.
Facing a city-parish budget shortfall that Edwards says requires either new revenue or layoffs and a reduction of services, the mayor’s game plan, the columnist notes, is to get voters to renew a series of dedicated property taxes for the library, COA and mosquito abatement and then reallocate a portion to the general fund.
Sounds simple enough, concludes McCollister, but the challenge is not only getting a tax-averse population to go along with the plan but also winning over ardent library supporters who are angry that the nationally respected and well-managed agency is being asked to pay the price for the fiscal mistakes of others.
The big game arrives in November, when voters across East Baton Rouge Parish will decide the “tax bowl.” Much attention has been given to the impact of the St. George incorporation, the columnist notes, but that’s only part of the problem. “The deeper issues are a parish addicted to dedicated revenues, soaring benefit costs—an eye-popping 70% added to salaries—and years of budget neglect under former Mayor Sharon Weston Broome,” McCollister writes.
McCollister says he respects Edwards, but as a voter and taxpayer, he wants to know if he has the courage to confront these challenges, or if the Thrive EBR tax swap is just a Band-Aid for “team status quo.” McCollister, who served on the mayor’s transition team, contends the city-parish government could be cut by 10%—roughly 450 jobs—and made more efficient by adopting practices that other cities already employ.
“Accountability is lacking,” McCollister writes. “During the pandemic, zero layoffs occurred, even as the private sector struggled, and the parish still can’t say how many employees have returned to the office—despite the fact there is no ‘remote work policy.’”
McCollister contends Edwards deserves credit for backing changes to retiree health plans and exploring EMS-Fire restructuring. However, the columnist writes, bold moves remain—such as hiring a professional city manager to oversee a billion-dollar operation. If Edwards wants Baton Rouge to “thrive and win,” as McCollister puts it, he must commit now—or voters will force change on Nov. 15 in the election booth.
