Provides relative to the Downtown Development District of the city of Baton Rouge

STATUTORY CONTEXT:

House Bill 213 amends and reenacts R.S. 33:2740.8(D)(1) and (2)(a), (b), and (d), (E)(2) and (5), and (F) through (M), and repeals R.S. 33:2740.8(N), all within Title 33 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, which governs municipalities and parishes. Section 2740.8 specifically authorizes the creation, composition, powers, and financing mechanisms of the Downtown Development District of the city of Baton Rouge, a special taxing district established within the boundaries of the city of Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish. The enacting clause of the bill also references compliance with Article III, Section 13 of the Louisiana Constitution, which requires advance notice of intention to introduce local and special legislation, confirming the bill's character as a local or special law applicable exclusively to the Baton Rouge metropolitan area.

Under current law, R.S. 33:2740.8 authorizes the metropolitan council of the city of Baton Rouge and the parish of East Baton Rouge, with the approval of the mayor-president, to create the Downtown Development District as a special taxing district. The statute establishes a seven-member governing board of commissioners, prescribes membership qualifications and appointment mechanisms, specifies terms of office, addresses compensation and reimbursement of board members, grants various powers and duties to the board and district regarding planning and capital improvements, and authorizes the levy of a special ad valorem tax not exceeding ten mills on taxable real property within the district as well as the issuance of bonds secured by those tax proceeds. The existing subsections (F) through (N) govern the board's authority to prepare plans for public improvements and services, the city-parish's role in implementing those plans, the tax levy and bond issuance processes, and various procedural and administrative mechanisms. Subsection (N), which is repealed in its entirety by this bill, currently addresses matters of present law that the proposed legislation renders obsolete through reorganization and substantive change.

SCOPE AND NATURE OF THE CHANGE:

The bill makes changes across five broad categories: board composition and appointment procedures; term structure and term limits; member compensation and travel reimbursement; administrative staffing; and planning obligations, each analyzed in turn.

Regarding board composition, the bill amends R.S. 33:2740.8(D)(1) to restructure how four of the seven board seats are filled. The deleted language eliminated two specific appointment mechanisms: one seat drawn from a list of four nominees submitted by the Riverside Association, and two seats drawn from a list of six nominees submitted by property owners and lessees of property within the district. These three seats, previously the product of nominations by organized private stakeholder groups, are replaced by a single consolidated category of three members appointed by the mayor-president with metro council approval, who must themselves be property owners or lessees within the district boundaries. The requirement that at least one of the three be a property owner and at least one be a lessee ensures balanced representation between the two classes of private stakeholders without requiring nomination lists from external organizations. The deletion of the Riverside Association's nominating role removes an institutional channel through which that particular business and property stakeholder organization formally participated in board governance. Additionally, the bill updates the name of the Greater Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce to the Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnership in the seat governed by D(1)(b), reflecting what appears to be an organizational name change for that entity. The at-large mayoral appointment, the Spanish Town resident seat, and the Beauregard Town resident seat are all retained without substantive modification, though their subparagraph designations are restructured.

Regarding term structure, the bill amends R.S. 33:2740.8(D)(2)(a) and (b). The deleted language had established an initial staggered term structure for all originally appointed board members, with two members serving one year, two serving two years, and three serving three years, with subsequent terms all set at three years. The new language simplifies the general rule to three-year terms for all members, while creating a transitional staggering mechanism specifically for the three newly authorized seats under subparagraph (e). Those three new members will draw lots at the first board meeting following their appointment to determine who serves initial terms of one, two, and three years respectively, after which all subsequent terms will run three years. The bill also expressly provides that existing board members whose seats were eliminated — specifically those holding the Riverside Association nominee seat and the two property owner and lessee nominee seats — see their terms terminate upon the effective date of the act, while remaining members continue to serve their current terms undisturbed.

The addition of R.S. 33:2740.8(D)(2)(d) is a wholly new provision imposing a two-consecutive-term limit on board members, with a carve-out clarifying that a member appointed to fill an unexpired term does not count that partial term toward the consecutive-term limitation. No such term limit existed in prior law, making this a substantive expansion of the statutory governance framework.

Regarding compensation and travel reimbursement, the bill amends R.S. 33:2740.8(E)(5). The deleted language provided that members shall receive a travel allowance as reimbursement for expenses incurred while attending to the business of the board or the district, which was a broad and mandatory entitlement covering any district-related activity. The replacement language changes this in two significant respects. First, the mandatory "shall receive" language is converted to permissive "may receive" language, making reimbursement discretionary rather than automatic. Second, the scope of reimbursable travel is substantially narrowed: under new law, reimbursement is available only when attending a conference, educational event, or meeting on behalf of the district, and only when that event is held outside the boundaries of East Baton Rouge Parish, and only when the travel is approved in advance by both the full board and the executive director of the district. This change eliminates reimbursement for any local travel or local meetings, which under prior law would have been compensable, and introduces a dual approval requirement that creates administrative oversight of spending.

Regarding administrative staffing, the bill substantially rewrites former subsection (F) by converting it into a new executive director provision. Under prior law, subsection (F) contained the planning and plan-preparation powers that are now moved to the new subsection (G). The new subsection (F) creates a formal executive director position appointed by the metro council upon recommendation of the board, paired with a requirement that the executive director in turn appoint an assistant executive director and hire or contract for other professional, clerical, and support staff as the board deems necessary. Prior law did not contain a codified executive director provision with this chain of administrative authority, and the placement of the appointment power with the metro council — rather than the board itself — while requiring a board recommendation reflects the hybrid governance structure of special districts under Louisiana law, where the municipality retains ultimate accountability over the entity it created.

Regarding planning obligations, the bill moves and reformulates the district's planning duty from former subsection (F) to the new subsection (G). Critically, the deleted language had required the board to prepare plans that included detailed financial components: an estimate of annual and total costs of proposed services and improvements, the proportion of the mill levy dedicated to services versus capital improvements or debt service, and an estimate of total mills required annually to fund the plan. The new subsection (G) requires only that the district prepare a plan or plans specifying public improvements, facilities, and services proposed to be furnished, constructed, or acquired, along with a public hearing and notice process. The elimination of the mandatory financial detail requirements removes a structural planning constraint that previously tied plan preparation to specific millage calculations and proportional allocations, potentially streamlining the planning process while reducing the specificity of public disclosure at the plan stage.

The bill also amends R.S. 33:2740.8(E)(2) to update a cross-reference from Subsection (I) to Subsection (H), reflecting the subsection renumbering that results from the structural reorganization of (F) through (M). Subsections (H) through (M), which govern the city-parish's role in service delivery, the ad valorem tax authorization, the bond issuance procedures, the electoral approval requirement, and related financial mechanisms, are reenacted in amended form primarily to preserve their content following the renumbering but also to incorporate the administrative changes described above. The repeal of subsection (N) eliminates what was a transitional or ancillary provision that the legislature has determined is no longer necessary given the reorganization of the statute.

PURPOSE AND LEGISLATIVE INTENT:

The apparent legislative purpose of HB 213 is to modernize and reform the governance structure of the Downtown Development District to make board composition more directly reflective of current stakeholder realities while reducing the influence of specific private nominating organizations whose institutional role may have diminished or whose relationship to