BATON ROUGE — The Capital Area Transit System is pushing back against a bill that its author says calls for more financial transparency.

House Bill 204's author, Representative Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, says the legislation would require CATS, BREC, and the East Baton Rouge Council on Aging to submit a bank statement monthly to a legislative auditor.

"House Bill 204 simply asks that once a month, for less than one minute, you provide the bank statements so the people of Baton Rouge and all of Louisiana can see how much money you have and where you're spending your tax dollars," McMakin said.

If passed, McMakin told WBRZ that the spending info would be accessible to the public.

"If you compare a few months, you can kind of get an idea and see where they're spending that money. Is it going to certain vendors? Not certain vendors? What are we spending that money on? They (CATS) mention that they do this in their meetings, well, their meetings, when they provide those documents, their meetings and their bank statements are not made public. You have to ask for a public records request," McMakin said.

McMakin argues that the yearly audits that CATS currently provides don't always catch issues during the fact.

"An audit doesn't catch something until well after it happens. Having monthly reports, which we do with state dollars by the way, so why is it wrong to ask local agencies to do that as well?" McMakin asked.

McMakin cited recent reports by the WBRZ Investigative Unit about previous CATS contracts, including the indictments of former CATS Chief Administrator Pearlina Thomas and EBR Metro Councilman Cleve Dunn, as some of the motivation behind the bill.

"The more and more you see news reports of CATS, BREC, Council on Aging, are putting into question how they're operating with the people's tax dollars," McMakin said.

However, CATS Chief Executive Officer Theo Richard says that the bill is unnecessary, pointing to existing audits and financial reports that he says are already available to the public.

"We provide annual audits that are subject to the Louisiana legislative auditors as well. As of today, we are current on all of our audits; we're not two or three years behind," Richard told WBRZ.

Richard, who has served in his role as CEO since 2024, says the bill would only duplicate the existing work of the staff. In their 2024 audit, the number of findings went down from seven to one. Richard also says they're currently underway with their 2025 audit.

"We have had no misuse of funds in this agency since I've been both interim and permanent CEO. Check our audits. I cannot speak on any pending litigation, but as an agency, we strive to ensure that every dollar that we've entrusted with is being best utilized," Richard said.

Richard says that CATS financial information is already posted online and is reviewed regularly by the CATS Board of Commissioners.

"We are subject to public meeting law and what comes along with the public records request, so that information is always accessible for the community to retrieve," Richard said. "We are up to date on providing our financial statements to the board. The commissioners meet right here at Donmoor every third Tuesday of the month at 4:30, where they review our financial statements and the position of the agency in its entirety."

WBRZ reached out to both the Council on Aging and BREC on Tuesday. Neither group responded for comment.