BATON ROUGE - At least 200 city-parish jobs are on the line after the city-parish's plan to move around money and fill budget holes failed Saturday night.

Monday afternoon, Mayor-President Sid Edwards announced cuts have already started in his office, though he hasn't announced which positions, as he works to reduce his budget by 12%.

In less than a month, the East Baton Rouge Metro Council will vote on a budget. After voters rejected the Thrive EBR tax plan, the council will have to find another way to cover $21 million deficit. The Thrive EBR plan was a three-part tax plan that would have tapped into budgets for the East Baton Rouge Library, Council on Aging and Mosquito Abatement and Rodent Control.

"As soon as Thrive failed, you were going to see many people put millages on the ballot in 2026," Metro Council member Jen Racca said. "That is exactly what the conversation has been this morning."

Racca says BREC and the library have both had conversations about bringing another set of millages to the voters. Although the library is in a different position, its current millage is set to expire at the end of the year.

The first proposition on the ballot would have renewed the library's millage and reallocated money within the city-parish.

Two weeks ago, the Mayor President presented a budget which showed more than 200 jobs would be cut and another 220 vacancies would not be filled.

"It's hard to have those tough conversations, but those are the things that have to be done now that the city-parish is running the deficit that it is," Metro Council member Darryl Hurst said.