BATON ROUGE - The Thrive EBR plan voters rejected Saturday would have given Baton Rouge Police officers a raise. BRPD Chief TJ Morse says the department is understaffed, and without the raised pay the plan would have given, they will continue to struggle to attract new officers.

"We are 150 short. I showed some of the pay studies people right here in our own backyard paying more money than us, so it is something to be concerned with," Morse said.

The BRPD Training Academy is also seeing low enrollment. Morse hopes that without a raise, resignations do not follow.

“If we start losing officers or not having the ability to have academies, what services are we gonna have to cut?”, he said.

“You’re not going to see as many officers out there on the streets doing certain things, interacting with the community… parades and all those other things we’re expected to do beyond the minimum of just showing up for the 911 call," he said.

He says he is in active talks with city leaders about what comes next.

"Everybody who makes up the Baton Rouge Police Department, [try to] get them some more money, the money that I think they deserve, it’s definitely something we’re in communication about, and I plan to continue talking to the council to get that up,” he said

Morse told WBRZ that crime is down, but that his department still needs to be fully staffed for it to fully serve the public.

"Only worry about the things you can control. We can’t control politics. We can’t control voters. We can’t control how much money we make,” Morse said.

“But we can control how we interact with the public. We can control the attitude we have every day that we come and serve the citizens of Baton Rouge, and I think that’s what you’re seeing with our crime numbers,” he said.