Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee

Indianapolis City-County Council

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Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024
5:30 p.m. — 7:30 p.m. EDT

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200 East Washington Street Indianapolis, IN 46204 (Directions)

Monthly meeting of the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee of the City-County Council to consider pending legislation

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Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Indianapolis - IN Documenters Team

Photo by Valence Hayze

Regular meeting of Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee

Public Safety Committee Chair

By Valence Hayze ⋅ September 4th, 2024

Sherriff Kerry Forestal

By Valence Hayze ⋅ September 4th, 2024

Sherriff Fostal seeking 6-14 million in funding covering OV f for under …

Jake MCBey

By Valence Hayze ⋅ September 4th, 2024

Finance Officer

Live reporting by Randy Wyrick

Millions of dollars needed to cover staff shortages at the Marion County Sheriff's Office

randy51722

Good evening. I'm Randy Wyrick and I'll be live tweeting tonight's City-County Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee.

04:59 PM Sep 4, 2024 CDT

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Good evening. I'm Randy Wyrick and I'll be live tweeting tonight's City-County Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee. @mirrorindy @indydocumenters

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Tonight, agencies will submit their budget proposals to the committee.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters First up is the Metropolitan Services Agency Emergency.

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Their 2025 budget request is $17,494,335, slightly up from last year.

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Their overall budget proposal for 2025 is $17, 494,335.

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Their telecommunicators -dispatchers - handled 83,000 calls during August.

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They average response time when a call came in was between 18 and 24 seconds.

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The goal is to reduce that down to 10 seconds.

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Some of what’s hampering is inexperienced telecommunicators.

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To work as a telecommunicator you have to pass a test and a criminal background check.

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One of the hurdles is for candidates getting downtown to the City-County Building in the middle of the day to take those tests.

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To address that, they're moving toward doing the testing online.

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Candidates must pass a criminal background check, and that also eliminates a few candidates.

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Like many of us, they're understaffed, especially with telecommunicators. Right now, they have 53 open positions.

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MCCOY - the Marion County Commission on Youth - presented its 2025 budget proposal.

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MCCOY is a community youth organization and has been around 31 years.

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Kate Roelecke, program director, said their goal is early intervention to keep youth from becoming embroiled in the criminal justice system.

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Currently, they work with 2,169 youth.

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“We believe that system involvement is the least desirable outcome for our youth. We know prevention works," Roelecke told the committee.

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Prevention saves money and lives, Roelecke said.

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Incarceration and falling into the criminal justice system saves money and lives, Roelecke said.

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Roelecke pointed out the heart breaking irony of presenting her budget request on Wednesday, the day of yet another school shooting, this one if Georgia.

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... this one in Georgia, not if Georgia.

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MCCOY asked the city for $71,500.

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In the Sheriff's Office budget presentation, Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forstal's proposal asked an increase of $11,481,133 over last year.

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Some of that increase is in personnel and equipment in the Criminal Justice Center.

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They've been aggressively pursuing grants to cover some of that, especially seeking aid for people who are suffering from addictions.

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Staffing is also a challenge for the Sheriff's Office. Detention deputies, for example, has a 45 percent turnover rate.

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And changes in federal programs could make millions of those dollars disappear.

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On the personnel side, racial diversity is increasing. African American staffers increased from 35 percent to 40 percent in the past year.

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They work all sorts of job fairs to recruit, They're especially with their partnership with Martin University.

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They make up for some of it by deputies working overtime - more than $1 million last year.

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Upon further review, the MCSO had to spend $6 million on overtime to cover staffing shortages.

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Sheriff Forstal said sometimes deputies work 16 hour shifts.

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For now, the budget is a bit nebulous. The MCSO is still negotiating contracts with employee groups.

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The MCSO has been short-handed for at least the last decade and a half.

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The overall 2025 budget proposal is for $141 million. That would cover 828 staffers. Right now, the MCSO has 801 people on staff.

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Chairperson Christa Carlino adjourned the meeting at 7:05.

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Note-taking by Kat Myers

Marion County Sherriff's Office and Commission on Youth budget presentations

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Attachments

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Meeting Agenda

By Randy Wyrick ⋅ September 4th, 2024

Event Details

September 4th, 2024

Agency Information

Indianapolis City-County Council

See meeting notes for details

www.indy.gov

See Documenters reporting

The Indianapolis City-County Council is the legislative branch of our local government. In addition to adopting budgets, levying taxes, and authorizing financial appropriations to fund city and county operations, the council is responsible for enacting, repealing, and amending local laws. The Council appoints members to boards and commissions that serve the community, and all meetings are open to the public.

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