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# Baton Rouge's go-it-alone question stalls
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/baton-rouges-go-it-alone-question-stalls/
- Published: 2026-11-01T23:32:40.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-01T23:32:40.000Z
- Description: A report on separating the city from the parish is on hold.
- Author: Mukul Verma

Whether Baton Rouge can stand alone as a city will have to wait. A request for a report was on the Metro Council agenda last week, but time, money and procedure have put it on hold.

**Why it matters:** A report would open a debate that's been simmering since St. George became a city, joining Zachary, Baker and Central. A top city-parish official privately told *RedEye* that debate is the start of a long road he believes ends in a separate city.

**The details:**

- Council Member Cleve Dunn asked the finance department whether Baton Rouge, split from the parish, could pay its own bills.
- City-parish finance director Angie Savoy told the council that the job would take about 18 months, far slower than Dunn wanted, and that an independent accounting firm should handle it.
- The finance department plans to return with recommended next steps Nov. 10.
- Hiring a consulting firm falls to the Mayor-President's office, which holds the budget and the authority. RedEye has asked whether the mayor is interested and is waiting to hear back.

**The big picture:** East Baton Rouge’s consolidated government allocates taxes more efficiently. But losing St. George, now the state's fifth-largest city, has tightened the parish budget and stirred grumbling that Baton Rouge needs its own mayor.

- As it stands, the mayor-president serves both the city and the parish.

**The bottom line:** Dunn got the question out front, but it's likely to sit a while, and a slow report would push the real debate back a couple of years or more. Still, nothing stops Baton Rouge residents from starting their own breakaway movement.

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