BATON ROUGE - BREC's property tax is up for renewal in the June 27 election. If passed by voters, the agency can continue to collect the funding from the tax for another ten years.

BREC Interim Superintendent Janet Simmons explained that the tax goes toward maintenance and operations and generates nearly $25 million, which she says is less than what they spend on operations and maintenance annually.

"Some of the other millages that we have also cover operations and maintenance," Simmons said.

Simmons says they have about a $110 million budget each year.

"$25 million of that is capital improvement projects, the rest of it is operations and maintenance. So you can do the math," she said.

Which means around $85 million is budgeted to keep the parks running.

"Primarily, maintenance to parks and whatnot is going to include mowing, repairing roofs, repairing damaged property. All of the things that are considered maintenance, ongoing maintenance, like you would have cleaning the parks, all those things. Operations is more of a park programming, summer camps that we have," Simmons said.

 Simmons says BREC is different from other agencies, and does not have money set aside to cover unexpected expenses or future projects.

"We do not have a capital reserve, like the library has, so it's an ongoing thing, that we have to preserve because a lot of projects go over years," Simmons said. 

She says how much BREC allocates to projects can fluctuate. 

"We may spend $35 million one year, or, like in the case of the zoo, $60 million in a year. Well, that means we have to recoup that money somehow, from other places, so it just averages out over the years," she said.