BATON ROUGE, LA – Baton Rouge residents finally got the news they’ve been waiting for: the city-parish has hired a Chief Efficiency Officer, a position designed to make government run smoother, faster, and, if all goes well, at least slightly less painful than a trip down Government Street at rush hour.
According to officials, the new officer’s top priority will be reducing the time it takes for basic services, like trash pickup, from “borderline geologic” to something closer to “seasonal.” “If we can get residents’ six-month trash complaints down to just four months, we’ll consider that a win,” one council member said proudly.
Other efficiency upgrades are on the horizon as well. Work orders for broken traffic lights may now only sit on a desk for three years instead of five, while pothole repair requests could be streamlined into a single “sorry for the inconvenience” form letter.
City leaders say this new role proves they are serious about tackling Baton Rouge’s inefficiencies. Residents, however, remain cautiously optimistic, most are still waiting on a response to efficiency complaints they filed back in 2017.
