Officials want to create a new public authority that could control the Baltimore Convention Center and other downtown property. They just want to study it a little more first.

On the final day of the legislative session, state lawmakers passed a bill that extends the life of a task force looking into how the authority would work. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Wes Moore before becoming law.

According to supporting documents, the renewal of the task force will likely cost $350,000 in taxpayer money, which is expected to be paid to consultants.

Earlier this year, lawmakers introduced a bill that would have created the Baltimore Convention and Tourism Redevelopment and Operating Authority.

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The administration of Mayor Brandon Scott drafted the bill. While the authority would operate in Baltimore and Scott would appoint a majority of its members, a public authority is an independent political body, and it can only be created by the state government.

The bill appeared to have the ambitious, but targeted, goal of creating an authority to oversee renovations of the Baltimore Convention Center. But the authority would also have broad power to control and own property, remake public spaces and potentially play a key role in the privately funded redevelopment of Harborplace at the Inner Harbor.

An authority would work with the state to borrow money to tackle ambitious capital projects and repay the debt over multiple decades, possibly with a revenue stream that could include taxes.

Despite a favorable review earlier in the session, the mayor’s office worked with lawmakers to tweak the bill, likely postponing the creation of any authority until next year.

Nina Themelis, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Government Relations, told lawmakers last month that the city was still “working through some of the specifics of the authority,” including its financing model.

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“We just didn’t have the amount of time needed to make sure that we were passing the best possible version,” Themelis said during a March meeting of the Baltimore delegation.

As outlined in the revised bill, the task force will study how best to finance the authority and issue a report by Dec. 1. The task force issued a report last year that recommended new taxes on prepared foods and hotels.