BATON ROUGE — Dozens of people gathered outside of Baton Rouge City Hall on Monday afternoon to protest proposed cuts to next year's budget.

Their primary concern was the reduction in funding for the public defender's office.

City and community leaders took to the microphone, arguing that the current budget plan is unfair.

They pointed out that the Public Defender's office is losing more money than the District Attorney's office.

"And so as I stand here before you guys today, our public defender's office is being gutted by 38 percent. That seven attorneys and support staff are already receiving layoff notices while the DA's office has only seen 11 percent of reduction," Tia Fields said. 

The Metro Council is set to meet again on Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m..