BATON ROUGE — A new legislative audit of the East Baton Rouge Parish Recreation and Park Commission found eight repeated issues from the previous year's review.

The audit, covering the fiscal year ending in December 2024, found that BREC failed to reconcile accounts on time and lacked complete financial documentation in several areas.

State Rep. Dixon McMakin has been pushing for more transparency from the commission for years.

"I'm very disappointed that once again, they had the same mistakes that they've had previously," McMakin said.

This legislative session, McMakin introduced a bill that would have required BREC and the Capital Area Transit System to submit monthly bank statements to the auditor's office. That bill has so far failed to get out of committee. During the last committee hearing, BREC Superintendent Janet Simmons said the agency has been working to catch up on its audits.

"We were happy to say that we were able to complete all the delayed audits, 3 audits, and we're on target to complete our audit for 2025," Simmons said.

McMakin said he remains committed to pushing for transparency and wants to give BREC's new board and new CEO time to settle in before introducing new legislation.

"Right now, these audits are making it very clear that BREC has a few things that are wrong. Get in there, tackle those first," McMakin said.

State Rep. C. Denise Marcelle is also pushing for transparency, saying she is most concerned by what BREC's most up-to-date audits show going forward.

"I don't know if it should have been done monthly, but certainly quarterly, I'd like to see what BREC is doing. Again, giving us some information that's up to date," Marcelle said. 

The audit can be found here.