BATON ROUGE — Early voting starts Saturday for the May 3 election, and East Baton Rouge Parish residents will vote on a tax proposition and renewals.

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore said there is a backlog of cases due to his office being underfunded and understaffed. He said this tax will improve office operations.

“Our goal – our main goal is stop this backlog, get caught up as quickly as we can have a much swifter system of justice,” said Moore.

The tax will add a 4-mill property tax for the next 20 years if passed. The money raised from the tax will is estimated to be about $24.4 million. That money will go straight toward the District Attorney's office.

“We’ve been losing employees pretty quickly to other agencies that pay more, have less stress, less amount of cases, and it’s just taken a toll over the years,” said Moore.

Five other tax renewals will be on the ballot that targets improving different areas in the East Baton Rouge Public School System. 

One tax renewal is to keep a tax of .72 mills, which will raise about $3.9 million per year for ten years, funding the district's “I Care” program aiming to prevent alcohol and drug abuse in schools.

Another is to keep a tax of 1.04 mills, raising about $5.6 million for ten years for operating and maintaining the school system.

If renewed, a 5.99 mill tax will raise about $32.3 million per year for ten years, helping improve the benefits and salary for public school employees.

The fourth proposal would continue a 4.98 mill tax, which will raise about $26.8 million over ten years that would replace lost state and local funding to help keep the schools up and running. 

Lastly, an additional 7.14 mills tax would aim to improve and maintain the salaries and benefits for school employees; it would raise about $38.5 million in the span of 10 years.

Other items on the ballot will be to elect two members to be added on to St. George council seat. Voters will decide between Republican Patricia Cook and Independent David Madaffari for the District 4 seat, as well as Republican Jim Talbot and Democrat Shaunn Wyche for an at-large council seat.

Voters will also choose a new state representative to fill the vacant 67th District seat. Terry Landry Jr., Sonny Marchbanks and Malcolm Myer, all Democrats, are running for the post.

There will be a public debate Saturday for the candidates vying for state representative.

The debate will be held at Upstage Theatre at 1713 Woodale Boulevard starting at 6 p.m. The debate will also be livestreamed.