BATON ROUGE — Halfway through his first 100 days in office, Mayor-President Sid Edwards says he is still learning the ropes.

"The biggest adjustment for me is the slow pace — the slow pace of government. As a coach, I like to rock and roll. I like to go," Edwards said. 

He says one of the hardest things he's had to tackle is the crime rate, a promise he reiterated during his campaign and after his election.

"In my opinion, we are already better than we were 50 days ago," he said.

Edwards came into office after seven years with close to — or more than — 100 homicides parish-wide annually.

"When you look at, in a given year, over 100 homicides — a lot of stuff the media doesn't know is that 379 people give or take were shot in Baton Rouge," the former Istrouma High School coach said.

Earlier this month, Edwards announced a couple of initiatives to bolster Baton Rouge Police, which has been severely understaffed for years.

"The big thing is recruitment. We have eight cadets right now and it really needs to be 28 in the academy, but the pay is so low and it's not an attractive position," Edwards said.

To increase recruitment, Edwards wants to raise Baton Rouge Police pay from $40,900 to $58,000.

To do that, he has proposed taking money from the library system, which he says has a budget surplus, and putting it into the parish's general fund. The library has disputed the surplus, saying that the alleged surplus is their budget for next year.

Another initiative he is proposing is bringing back retired officers to help solve cold cases and free up other officers to respond to calls.

But there's one aspect of crime-fighting that the former coach can't directly control: what happens after arrests are made.

"It's very discouraging to me that our officers make an arrest, only to arrest the same guy three days later, and that's a problem," Edwards said.

While it's not something he has a plan for yet, he says he has spoken to District Attorney Hillar Moore at length and plans to continue those talks.

"We got in my opinion a failed system and they're getting out on the streets way too soon and I think that's a problem and that's going to be a discussion. It's not an initiative I have. I can't say 'Hey I'm going to do this in the mayor's seat,' but it's some hard discussion I want to have with everyone involved," he said.

If the Metro Council approves Edwards' funding proposal in March, it will be on the ballot for a public vote in October.