East Baton Rouge Parish residents will see three separate items on the ballot when they walk into the voting booth on Saturday, but it’s all part of Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ plan to fix the parish’s budget woes — and it’s one of his first major political tests.

The city is facing a structural budget deficit. Edwards wants to take some of the money currently dedicated to libraries, mosquito and rodent control and the Council on Aging and reroute it to the parish general fund, giving him more flexibility to fix the problem.

The vote has been in the works for months. What began as an effort to shift a portion of the library system’s funding to the Baton Rouge Police Department has evolved into “Thrive,” which Edwards says is necessary to put the parish on the right fiscal footing.

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