BATON ROUGE — The Mid City Gras Parade held its annual Mardi Gras Ball on Saturday, featuring this year's theme, the "Squirrel Olympics."

Organizers said the theme is to celebrate everyone who goes for the gold in their lives. The ball also served as a fundraiser to aid the organization in paying for rising security costs for the parade. 

WBRZ has previously reported the change from the Baton Rouge Police Department has impacted several parades within the city as organizations struggle to find the funding to afford the security. 

Organizers for the Cortana Kiwanis Christmas parade were forced to cancel what would have been the 75th anniversary of the parade due to rising security costs following a shooting that interrupted the parade in 2024. 

Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse told WBRZ that the department currently faced an increased workload and a shortage of officers on the street. 

“We're handling more calls now than we were three years ago,” Chief Morse said.

Because Chief Morse must ask more officers to put in extra detail hours to cover special events like parades, Morse said he has to pass those costs on to parade organizers.

Organizers for the Spanish Town Parade, an event celebrated in the city for over 40 years, are also struggling with the added fees. 

"If we can't get the security, then we, like other parades, have talked about moving out of the city of Baton Rouge," President of Mystic Krewe of the Preservation of Lagniappe Robert King said.

According to the police chief, the cost for officers at parades is about $50 to $55 an hour. 

Metro Councilman Cleve Dunn suggested creating a policy that requires entities to request officers for their event. The city can then evaluate whether the event is a return on investment for the city-parish.

"Fleshing out some sort of policy, or ordinance that all requests can be evaluated by and measured by," Dunn said.