BATON ROUGE - The Baton Rouge Police Department is one of the first departments to feel the cuts happening to their budget following the incorporation of St. George, which has them currently operating on a $9 million budget. 

A month into 2025, Mayor Sid Edwards says every day, his administration is looking over their budget.

"No effect yet, of course, because we haven't put any initiatives out, we're looking at it," Edwards said. 

Cuts have happened to programs in the Baton Rouge Police like shot spotter and BRPD's mounted patrol. BRPD Chief "TJ" Morse says while they have canceled the contract, they are still getting services for now in regards to the shot spotter. 

"They have agreed to continue that service without accepting any money from us for now, while we look for possible other funding sources. It was a decision that it's extremely expensive and kind of cost prohibitive to move the sensors to other parts of the city," Morse said. 

As for the mounted patrol, Morse says the horses are getting older and retired, so it was a question of whether to invest more money on horses or invest in manpower or technologies BRPD does not have.

Mayor-President Sid Edwards says he would prefer to not cut BRPD's budget and he hopes to be able to save the shot spotter program.

"For the police department, it certainly is the last place that I want to see cut, so right now we are looking seeing what we can do to save that program. I think that it is an effective piece of policing and we are working hard to save as many things as we can," Edwards said.