Python variable scope issue in script

I'm coming across some weirdness with a variable not being accessible in other functions after being set. This is a Celery task file named html.py

base_path = ''

@app.task(bind=True)
def status(self):
    """
    retus the count of files downloaded and the timestamp of the most recently downloaded file
    """

    num_count = 0
    latest_timestamp = ''
    for root, _, filenames in os.walk(base_path):
        for filename in filenames:
            file_path = root + '/' + filename
            file_timestamp = datetime.fromtimestamp(os.path.getctime(file_path))
            if latest_timestamp == '' or file_timestamp > latest_timestamp:
                latest_timestamp = file_timestamp
            num_count += 1

@app.task(bind = True)
def download(self, url='', cl_id=-1):
    if len(url) == 0 or cl_id < 0:
        retu None

    base_path = settings.WGET_PATH + str(cl_id)

    log_paths = {
        'output' : wget_base_path + '/out.log',
        'rejected' : wget_base_path + '/rejected.log'
    }

    create_files(log_paths)
    wget_cmd = 'wget -prc --convert-links --html-extension --wait=3 --random-wait --no-parent ' 
                   '--directory-prefix={0} -o {1} --rejected-log={2} {3}'.
        format(wget_base_path, log_paths['output'], log_paths['rejected'], url)

    subprocess.Popen(wget_cmd, shell = True)

When I call this via

from ingest.task import html
web_url = 'https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/manual/html_node/index.html'
ingest = html.download.delay(web_url, 54321)

the wget process kicks off as expected. However, the base_path parameter at the top of the file never gets set, so when I call status via

status = html.status.delay()

the base_path variable is an empty string, despite status being called after download. Is this because these tasks are in a script vs a class?