The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council on Wednesday approved a $35 million amendment to the city-parish's capital improvement budget for Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome's MovEBR roads improvement initiative.

The $35 million represents the revenue the city-parish expects to generate from the half-cent sales tax within the first eight months since collection began April 1.

The 30-year sales tax approved by voters in December is expected to generate close to $1 billion over its life span. The tax is not applied to the purchase of groceries, prescription medicines or public utilities.

The city-parish will borrow money through the issuance of bonds to get the work going on the more than 70 projects and road improvements in the MovEBR plan so they don't have to wait for sufficient tax revenue to accumulate for the projects. The bonds will be repaid over time from the sales tax revenue.

+9 East Baton Rouge's new sales tax starts Monday; See early plans for ambitious MovEBR projects Starting Monday, shoppers in East Baton Rouge Parish will be paying an additional half-cent sales tax on some purchases to bankroll Mayor-Pres…

According to the budget request Broome's office submitted Wednesday to the Metro Council, $26 million has been earmarked for MovEBR projects that will be identified once the city-parish selects the project managers to prioritize the projects and oversee their implementation.

And $3 million of the initial sales tax revenue is going toward paying those program managers, the budget request states.

The city-parish's engineering selection board is expected to make its program manager recommendations Thursday. The recommendations will then be forwarded to the Metro Council.

The budget request also includes allotments for projects in the cities of Central, Zachary and Baker of $1 million, $1.2 million and approximately $500,000, respectively.

"Wait. Do they have their own MovEBR programs?" Councilman Trae Welch asked representatives from Broome's office at Wednesday's meeting.

Fred Raiford, the city-parish's director of transportation and drainage, said revenue collected from the sales tax within those city limits must be remitted to each municipality individually but that those projects all fall within the collective scope of the MovEBR plan.

Mow-to-own

Also Wednesday, the Metro Council approved a batch of mow-to-own property bids that could transfer ownership of several adjudicated properties over to neighbors who have been taking care of the abandoned lots for at least a year.

The council gave the Parish Attorney's Office the OK to move forward with six offers on adjudicated properties, most of which are in Councilwoman Tara Wicker's district. Wicker championed the city-parish's creation of the "mow to own" program back in 2016.

The program is designed to help rid blight and put adjudicated property back into commerce and on tax rolls.

The six applicants are paying from $250 to $1,010 for the properties approved Wednesday. Those costs include their bids and associated fees related to the property.