BATON ROUGE - On Wednesday, East Baton Rouge Parish Juvenile Court judges pleaded to the Metro Council, asking for more funding in the face of proposed budget cuts.

The 2025 proposed EBR City-Parish budget for the juvenile court shows a five-percent decrease in funding from 2024, roughly $92,000. For the EBRP Juvenile Court, every quarter counts.

"We were at the Metro Council meeting, we talked about our vending machine. The money that comes from our vending machine is important to us. We're not throwing a Christmas party with that money. We are paying for stuff," Judge Adam Haney said. "We've been chronically underfunded. I've been on the bench for ten years, and we've never been adequately funded."

The decrease will reduce money for interpreters, the indigent, and office supplies.

The Louisiana Center for Children's Rights said underfunded court systems can move slowly, negatively impacting children.

"The longer a child has contact with the legal system, whether that be the juvenile court system or the adult court system, the more harmful impact on the child," Louisiana Center for Children's Rights Deputy Legal Director Hannah Van De Car said.

Haney compared East Baton Rouge to Jefferson Parish and said the caseloads were similar. But, looking at budgets, Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court had a budget of 4.7 million dollars in 2024, while East Baton Rouge Parish's budget was 1.8 million dollars.

Haney said he would like to pursue grants but cannot.

"There are grants that we are not able to go get because I don't have the personnel capacity to go after those grants," Haney said. "It takes time and it takes people and we don't have those people so we're leaving money on the table."

He believes the $92,000 he needs exists somewhere.

"The city has like a 1.1 billion dollar budget. 1.1 billion with a B, right? The amount of money that would match us as the most populous parish in the state, the capital city, if you're going to fund us like we should, you wouldn't even notice it in that 1.1 billion dollars," Haney said.

Haney said he recognized the Metro Council has a difficult task ahead of it, but the juvenile court needs that money.

"I've come to the realization though that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so I've started to squeak louder. That's where we're at right now," he said.