BATON ROUGE — Voters in Baton Rouge will head back to the polls in June to vote on tax renewals for the East Baton Rouge Library System and Council on Aging. Both agencies were forced to pivot after the Thrive EBR plan failed in November.

Wednesday evening, supporters of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library and Council on Aging packed the council chambers as a vote was made on whether to grant the agencies a special election for their individual tax renewals.

"There are more than 5-6,000 community meetings that happen in our libraries on an annual basis, and almost all of our civic associations meet at some point in our libraries," one supporter said.

The East Baton Rouge Library System decreased its proposed millage rate to 9.50, dropping from its current rate.

But, some members of the Metro Council say they think it should be at 8.3 -- the level proposed in the Thrive plan.

"We realized that 8.3 is not going to be feasible," East Baton Rouge Parish Library Director Katrina Stokes said.

Metro Councilwoman Laurie Adams chose not to vote on the millage, but says if it were 8.3, she would've voted in favor of it.

"I think that the way we spend our money, or the amount of money that's allocated to the library in the future, probably needs to change in the light of the way people use the library these days," Adams said.

The East Baton Rouge Council on Aging also cut down its proposed millage rate to 2.0 match the Thrive Plan's proposal.

"We're not going to go back and ask for an increased amount, what we going to do is we going to make lemonade out of lemons right, and so we're going to figure out how we stretch what we have and make it do what we need it to do," East Baton Rouge Council on Aging Executive Director, Tasha Clark-Amar said.

Clark-Amar says going forward, they are working to get the message out about what they do and why it's important.

"We take care of seniors, we allow them to maintain their independence and live in their homes as long as possible. If we do that with 26 items, it costs us 6,000 a year to help a senior with 26 programs," Clark-Amar said.

A special election for both tax renewals will be held on June 27th.