Under pressure from a shrinking budget, the Baton Rouge Police Department and the Mayor's Office plan to shift the majority of security costs onto local event organizers, including for parades through downtown.

For decades, the police department has provided police officers to block intersections, manage crowds and provide public safety among parade attendants.

Now, the department seeks to push the cost of these officers' pay to the organizations that host events. That expense can total in the tens of thousands for a single day. 

The change follows conversations between city police officials and Mayor-President Sid Edwards' team on how to make up for the $9 million budget deficit the police department is dealing with in 2025.

"The main reason we're having to have these conversations really is, this is my checking account. This is how much money I have, and 90% of that is payroll and overtime," Police Chief Thomas Morse Jr. said in an interview.

"That's the biggest way I can cut. I don't have a lot of wiggle room to be able to provide officers for free."

Morse estimated the department spent about $250,000 in February alone on overtime pay related to special events.

Already BRPD cut its Mounted Patrol Division and the ShotSpotter program in order to save money.

Morse expects event organizers to shoulder the majority of the cost for officers, but said no exact formula has been developed on how those costs will be shared.

He couldn't provide an exact timeline for when the change will roll out, but said he wants to give organizers time to plan for the additional expense.

Edwards' office plans to form a committee to decide the specifics of the change and is working to identify interested parties such as event organizers, law enforcement and residents.

Overtime vs. extra duty

BRPD's traditional model for staffing events requires the department to offer overtime hours to entice off-duty officers to work community events.

Under this model, event organizers aren't required to pay the labor costs for any of the officers assigned to close roads and watch crowds. When organizers submit for a permit to block roads and intersections, the police department plans how many officers will be necessary.

The new model, as envisioned by Morse, would require event organizers to recruit officers themselves. Organizers would set an hourly rate of pay for the day's event, then see if enough officers will volunteer at that rate. If not, they may have to increase the offer.

This practice, called extra duty, is the same one used when bars, apartments and churches want to hire officers for security.

"It's, for lack of a better word, free market," Morse said.

When city police officers work regular extra-duty opportunities, the rate is set by the business to attract the amount of officers it requires. Morse said factors like the difficulty or length of the work will usually affect the rate offered.

"A church might be able to pay $35 an hour for the officer to go, whereas a bar might have to pay $50 an hour," Morse said. "Because that's the only way they're going to get officers to show up and actually want to work it."

The minimum rate set by the police department for extra duty pay is $30 an hour.

The city's biggest parades, like the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade and the Wearin' of the Green Parade, require more than 100 police officers. Morse estimated the police department paid about $50,000 in overtime pay for officers to work Wearin' of the Green St. Patrick's Day parade this year.

"If you need 100 officers out there, the only way you're going to get that many officers to show up is you're going to have to be competitive with what the (extra duty) rates are," Morse said.

The amount of officers needed at an LSU or Southern University sporting event rivals or surpasses the largest of Baton Rouge's parades. These institutions, however, have already been staffing their events by paying extra-duty rates for nearly a decade, Deputy Chief Neal Noel said.

Smaller events, which might require only a handful of officers, will be in the same boat as the big parades.

"They may only want two or three (officers), they may want four or five, but after a year of it, it really does impact our budget," Noel said.

Morse said the majority of officers at a parade are doing traffic control and street closures. These are the officers he expects organizers to pay.

"But then you also have the public safety aspect, where we have extra police presence, security, we have operations set up, drone operators monitoring, that sort of thing," Morse said. "I don't expect them to cover that cost, because that's something we want to do to make sure the city and the people are safe."

He estimated 10% or 15% of the officers at a given event are doing this kind of public-safety work, leaving event organizers to pay the wages of the other officers.

Other police departments, including New Orleans, have similar models for making event organizers carry some of the police labor cost of an event.

Budgetary concerns

Robert King, president of the Society for the Preservation of Lagniappe in Louisiana, which organizes the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade, has been involved in the parade-business for more than 40 years.

He said the idea for organizers to foot the bill for police security at their events has been floated before.

"That would put us, hopefully, breaking even with what we charge now," King said. "It could endanger the parade."

Spokespeople for the Wearin' of the Green and the Krewe of Oshun agreed the introduction of thousands of dollars in security costs has the potential to make their parades unfeasible.

King said his largest expenses are permitting and insurance for the parade. The latter nears $40,000 each year. An estimated $50,000 for police pay would become one of the parade's biggest expenses.

King said the parade might have to charge double for float entries to recoup the losses, which troubles him since Spanish Town Mardi Gras tries to remain a "poor man's parade."

The parade ends with a surplus of $80,000 to $100,000 each year, which organizers donate to charity. Adding the cost of security could cut into the donation.

"I'd like to see us discuss it with the city and sit down and see what we could do, because we do rely on our police officers," King said. "They do a good job for us with our parade. They enjoy working our parade."

Both King and Morse acknowledged the large amount of money the events bring to Baton Rouge. Both said they hope those impacts are considered when the committee discusses the change.

"I'm excited to be able to have the conversation, be in a room with people, bring up their concerns and see what people's thoughts are on how we can come to an agreement, a resolution that's best for taxpayers, best for citizens, best for the budget," the city police chief said.