Good evening.

Welcome to the uh new room.

For the admin finance committee meeting.

I'd like to start with introduction to my left.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Derek Cahill, District 23.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Brian Mowra, District 25.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Renate Allen, District 15.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair Nick Roberts, District 4.

Thank you, Chairman Muscary, Andy Nielsen, District 14.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman Dan Boots, District 3.

Good evening, Chairman Miss Gary.

Christa Carlino, District 11.

Good evening, Maggie Lewis.

Good evening, Mark Frank Mascarry, District 19.

With consent, I'd like to move the uh budget hearing of the Office of Mayor to the front.

Consent, consent.

Mr.

Parker, you have the floor.

I understand you're supposed to take your wife out to dinner tonight, correct?

This is my first time in this in this new room, so it's great sunlight.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman and members of the committee.

Uh Dan Parker, uh Chief Deputy Mayor uh for the office of uh Mayor Joe Hogsett.

Um mayor to present the uh consolidated office of mayor budget uh to all of you and appreciate your time.

Um first slide, I'm gonna try to make this quick because the chairman likes me to uh not talk too much and get to your questions.

Um but as the mayor laid out uh last night and you heard from our controller, um this was a uh challenging budget season, um, but one that uh provided us an opportunity to follow through on some of the things that we talked about at this committee last year, which was uh closer collaboration between the administration and the council.

Uh and I think we executed that through the through uh the process to build this budget.

Um there was tremendous amount of transparency that that both the administration and the council uh provided each other in terms of priorities.

Sorry.

Um and I think we had a better product for it.

So I wanted to thank uh members of the leadership uh and counselors um Nielsen, Boots, and Barth that joined leadership in terms of those conversations with council staff and the administration.

Uh I'm not gonna go over the overview for the mayor's office.

I think you all know what what the mayor's office does.

We uh support uh the mayor in implementing the initiatives across um uh across the administration and making our our city the strongest and most livable city in the Midwest.

As you heard from the mayor last night, there was a lot there's a lot of good things happening in the city.

Um, but wanted to make sure that you that I stressed the uh six objectives that the mayor gave us all when when uh trying to put this budget together.

Uh number one was obviously fully balanced.

You heard that last night.

This is the ninth consecutive balanced budget.

Second was uh no uh tax increases in the in the budget.

Third was to fully fund the labor contracts that we negotiated last year for most of our major uh city unions.

Fourth was to um plan and deal with the changes that came from the legislative session from Senate Bill 1 and other legislative actions.

Fifth was to plan for the the opportunities that are provided for House Bill 1461, and last was to make sure that when we had to uh do reserves that they we protected key investments as you see from the next slide, the organizational chart for for the office of the mayor.

Um this has all of our different uh sections that we'll go through.

Um not just mayor's admin, but also the Office of Education Innovation, this um civilian police complaint office, um, the MAC, uh, and like I said, the the mayor's admin.

So the overall first slide you'll see in our budget is the total, uh, and then we'll get into each section.

Oh, go back to the last one.

I wanted to uh recognize uh some of the folks that are in the in the audience tonight that are that sort of represent some of these positions.

The newest addition is is Natalie Van Doggan, who's the director of community outreach.

We all know Natalie.

I think Ruth Morales is in the back.

And is Ron Rice here?

I'm gonna take this is me taking attendance.

Uh Richard O'Kello from the Citizens Complaint Office is here.

Thank you, Richard.

Um I know that Alex from the Mayor's Action Center is um uh is out of town, but um Shay Joyce is our great director of government affairs, and I really want to uh take a moment to thank Shay and uh the controller for all the work that they did working with all of you uh to make a better product of this budget.

Um our senior policy advisor Aaron Chounce should be here.

Um I know Casey couldn't make it, uh, and then the person who helps actually build this budget, uh Ned Weasel, Ned.

Ned is Ned uh handles the budget uh functions in the mayor's office, and um he's the one person in the mayor's office you never want to cross.

Let's go to the next slide, which is our which is our mayor's neighborhood advocates.

If I could have all of the mayor's neighborhood advocates, please stand.

They are supposed to be right in neighborhood meetings.

They're at neighborhood meetings.

That's good.

See, that's what they're supposed to be at.

Um the great news, and I'll get to this in one of the slides that we have is that we have a fully staffed a mayor's neighborhood advocate program.

So looking at the mayor's uh office staffing, um, I like to put this in the um uh in our presentation each year.

Uh as you can see that the the ethnic background for for the mayor's office is is is very close to the uh makeup of the city.

Um and there's one thing that you can take from the slide on the right, is that um uh women run the mayor's office.

So uh you can see that on the right side where um there's only a handful of of folks who who look like me.

Um next up is the mayor's cabinet.

Um the mayor's prided himself in having a cabinet that's that's uh the most diverse uh in our city's history.

We continue to have that.

Um and once again you can see on the right that in when it comes to cabinet positions, uh, a majority of the positions are um are occupied by uh the great women of this administration.

To get into the budget, um the key thing I wanted to uh uh tell all of you is that we asked agencies to put four percent in reserve.

Um the office of the mayor uh did do that.

Um we'll go through each line item, and I know that there's going to be a certain questions on um what exactly do those reserves mean and what um what impact do they have?

Are they going to impact any services?

Um so as you can see, um this uh overall reduction is is something that has occurred over the course of the last 10 years.

Each and every single year, the mayor's office is actually presented to you a smaller budget than it had the year before.

This just happens to be a little bit smaller than we typically do.

Um, but we wanted to make sure that if we were asking every other agency in city government, city county government to put other than public safety, you put dollars in reserves that we also did as well.

So I'll start in on the specifics.

Uh for the mayor's admin, um, you see the variance on the right.

I'm gonna really focus in on the um the the negative one, which is the the 130.

Um the others, the character three, it's really increases in rent uh in chargebacks um that we have to pay.

Uh the the 130 uh is uh the elimination of one position uh in the mayor's office.

Uh it is the deputy mayor of economic development.

As most of you know, this year we um created a standalone economic development organization called Indy Economic Development Inc.

And we hired a president and CEO.

It's the first time we have a standalone economic development organization specifically dedicated towards Indianapolis.

And we hired a president and CEO, Jim Schellinger, a former uh secretary of IEDC, and the goal with that was to try to streamline economic development.

And so the goal was to have the president and CEO of that organization handle the functions of the deputy mayor of economic development.

And so that since that position was gonna remain vacant, we decided in this budget to eliminate the position to save those dollars uh to put back to make sure that we were putting in our fair share uh to save money.

Next up is the Office of Education Innovation, and I know that um they will present their overall budget to the uh education committee of the council, but I want to specifically zero in on those negative numbers.

OEI is funded a little bit differently.

Most of their money comes from the state, uh given their their um their charge of overseeing the the mayor-sponsored charter schools.

So the state funding was not affected by the reserves.

Their general fund money uh was and so there's two things uh going on there.

One we right-sized India Chiefs with the recent changes to state law in terms of the automatic qualifications for 21st century scholars.

Um the um the India Chiefs program was right-sized to what they were spending since that change in law.

Uh with that and with the addition of uh the Circle City reader money for the first time in the budget, that's where you come up with the the negative 79,000.

So um that's the that's the difference uh for OEI.

Uh next is Mayor's Action Center.

There is there is no um uh budgetary change uh for the mayor's action center.

We wouldn't want that.

I think you're gonna hear a little bit later a proposal um that is stems from the organization from my friends uh uh with the Teamsters local 135.

Um the mayor's office supports that uh proposal, uh, and it's really to me a technical clarifying uh question to allow for the the uh organization uh of the MAC call center.

So um I wanted to make sure that I touched on that so you heard from me directly that the mayor's office supports that proposal when it comes before you, Mr.

Chairman.

Next is the Citizen Um Police Complaint Office.

Um it's a minor adjustment in in character one uh for Richard's office, and that's related to um uh personnel.

And we're gonna evaluate that as the year goes through to make sure that we're on track to make sure that that does not impact uh Richard's ability to uh carry out his mission.

Next, um sort of programmatic and fiscal successes, obviously leading the way on fiscal discipline.

I think that uh sometimes it gets lost on how much this this administration and this council have done to sort of set us on the path to being able to deal with the challenges that we faced this year.

Um want to sort of touch on the key priorities that we laid out last night in the budget in terms of public safety.

Um this working with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform.

We call it Nick Jr.

Um you might know it as the gun violence reduction strategy, but um that program uh obviously took off in 2022.

It has seen incredible results.

You saw it uh uh last night in the mayor, you heard it last night in the mayor's speech.

50% reduction in criminal homicides since 2021, 46 uh 47 percent reduction in non-fatal shootings.

This is a program um that uh we working with David Mohammed from from Nick Jr.

Uh has been incredibly important, and those those meetings continue monthly uh in the mayor's office.

So that is something that's coming directly out of the mayor's office.

The second uh is obviously this the uh retention and recruitment of IMPD officers.

I think it's uh important even when we're facing staffing shortages to understand that we're still hiring police officers in this in the city of Indianapolis, and we've hired over 900 uh in the last 10 years and nearly 600 uh firefighters.

Umfrastructure is obviously something I think that there'll be a lot of questions on, but um this is an issue that obviously I've been working on for the last seven years over at the legislature, and I think that uh the success of the bill that came out of the General Assembly is something that uh we all in Indianapolis should be proud of in terms of um making that an important issue.

Next is housing.

Um we've been leading leading the way on this.

Uh the mayor's uh council on on homelessness is is something that um he took an active lead in in the streets to home initiative and other uh uh initiatives across the administration are critically important in this area.

Quality of life, I talked about Circle City Readers.

You'll hear more about that at Education, India Chiefs.

The historic level of investment in parks is really it stems from you know the the ask to the Lilly endowment.

Um so is the 32 miles of trails.

I know that it was one of your first projects that you wanted to see the Eagle Creek Trail extension.

Finally, we're gonna see it uh actually under construction in 2026.

I think it was actually the first project you mentioned after you got elected uh in 2020.

So but those trail projects really were stemmed from uh an uh ask from the uh Lilly Endowment and the CICF.

This council uh appropriated 25 million dollars to to match that.

Your trail got done, and counselor Carlino's is is starting.

Um and I know the question you're gonna ask uh what about the South Side, but the the miserable experience you had coming up Madison Avenue to get in is the first trail headed south.

So as a Southsider myself, I I understand um where you're coming from, but it was intentional just to have one of the projects as a part of that initiative to make sure that we started heading south.

Uh and then economic development, obviously, I touched on the creation of the uh Indy Economic Development, critically important for the Roche Diagnostics uh job retention and creation on the Northeast side, and there's more things coming uh in their pipeline.

Um and then obviously you heard the mayor touch on some of the some of the the accolades the city has received.

I think it's sometimes we get caught up uh in as being civil civil servants, public servants to try to tackle the next issue when we sometimes forget of all of the great things that we've actually done together uh to move our city forward.

Mentioned uh Natalie as our new director of community outreach.

Um we're gonna we're gonna actually assign Natalie even more staff so that we can build out that uh component of the mayor's office.

And like I said, we have a fully staffed uh MA team in the in the mayor's action center.

And I think that you know we've been working on clearing up avenues for for the reporting for the Mac and Request Indy.

Um and obviously it was something that we talked on, we talked we talked about last um year, but I think the collaboration in fiscal 25 has been better with the council than than I can remember in in all of my years uh with the city.

So for next year, obviously we can never take our foot off the gas related to to gun violence and and and we're gonna continue the uh collaboration with Nick Jr.

Um like I said, uh as the mayor talked about last night, um, we're gonna you know fully fund the union contracts, continue hiring uh IMPD officers, three recruit classes, IFD with a recruit class, support the Sheriff's Department.

We're gonna you know continue uh the collaboration between DPW and all of you.

Um you all saw your maps last night on what the possibilities are with the uh $50 million coming from the state and the $50 million that we're gonna match.

And then we're looking forward to the unveiling of of in October of the new snow policy that you all uh worked with us on in terms of overhauling and and in the budget itself is more investments for snow equipment, trying to stay in front of the bigger fleet.

What you funded in the spring was the smaller trucks that are necessary for that for the for the implementation of the new snow policy of two inches, four inches.

Uh housing, uh partnering with CHIP on on streets to home, uh investing in the DMD initiatives, and really the significant funding that we placed in the budget for for the tenant advocacy program uh is critically important in OPHS.

In terms of quality of life, one of the things I wanted to touch on because one of the positions that we have vacant in the mayor's office, one of the deputy mayor positions, we're gonna be utilizing through the contract that we have through OCC to help fund the project manager for the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance.

Um for those who did not see that last meeting.

Um Michael O'Connor from from uh Bose uh Public Affairs was asked to become the the project manager uh on that uh project.

So uh Mike Mike's contract is with the city, so he works for the city uh in this uh particular environment uh on this issue.

So if there are issues that you foresee or you're hearing in your districts, if you have portions of IPS uh in your district, um we can get you uh Mike's contact information so that you can uh have your answers uh um directly answered by Mike.

Uh he comes at this position uh with a unique perspective.

Um he was the chief deputy mayor for Mayor Peterson uh when the mayor's uh Office of Education and Innovation was created, uh, but also served as president uh of the uh Board of Commissioners for for IPS.

Uh next uh obviously uh the continued investment in Indy Parks and Trails.

Uh for those that don't know.

I mean, the mayor is an avid trail user, uh and it's part of the reason why trails is one of the things that I think um this administration will be known for uh in the years to come when all of these trails are built out.

Economic development, we need to continue on this.

Um I uh put uh one additional bullet point, and I think it's really one of those things that we all as as a city need to really focus on is um close coordination and collaboration with uh IU Indianapolis uh and then Purdue University at uh Indianapolis.

Uh we met with them this morning uh on the Purdue Master Plan and some things that they'd love to see from the city.

The goal there is to make sure that the city takes full advantage uh of the expansion that both universities are looking at uh here in the Capitol City.

And that Mr.

Chairman uh uh ends ends my parts of uh presentation and be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Parker.

Um question I have is the homeless.

Do we really have a place for them?

I mean, we the big one in on Leonard Street.

I know not gonna move them now, but is there an actual place for these people?

Well, the goal is to is to find uh there are housing units available, and um Aaron Schounts from the mayor's office is is the lead on on streets to home and and and home homeless homelessness issues to work some close um coordination with OPHS, which is the sort of short term, and then DMD on the long-term issues related to the to the issue.

But the goal is to try to uh find those those housing units to get people housed with the closure of of the camp that you were talking about.

We can do both streets to home and we need to deal with with camps when they when they sort of cross the line and become a public safety risk, and that's what we had down in Fountain Square.

When you had public safety incidents, you can't just sit back and just say, Oh, we're gonna wait until we have everybody housed.

So the the goal now is some people have moved.

Um but the goal is to try to get the remain remainder housed.

And if you have any further questions, I'd be happy to have Aaron come up and give you more specifics.

No worries.

Uh any questions for counselors?

Council thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um the mayor's administration budget.

I guess uh what I realized from that presentation is I don't understand how the new economic development entity is funded.

So that 130 is essentially a donation to that entity, or no?

Help me understand that.

No, that 130 would be a cut.

So um the initial investment in um Indy economic development was from uh the city used to support the chamber by uh with a million-dollar contract and an additional uh contract from uh business and neighborhood services.

So those contracts were moved over uh to the new nonprofit organization from the city.

So that's the city's support for the Indy economic development.

Their goal is to match the dollars that the city has put in raising private dollars.

So the city is not involved in the raising of that money.

That is part of Jim's responsibility as president and CEO.

Those dollars that you see in the mayor's admin are not going over to that organization.

That's what we're giving back to the treasure.

That's that's an FTE that didn't get to fill it as that is correct.

And then the previous dollars that went um to the Indy Chamber is now going to this new entity plus, they need to raise additional dollars that they're doing on their own.

That is correct.

Okay, thank you.

And just so you know, in terms of the elimination of the position, when we created the organization, we wanted to streamline the process for economic development.

Some folks didn't know where to go when when that organization was in the chamber.

Some folks didn't know if they needed to go to the mayor's office or go to develop Indy.

Now it's all that it's indie economic development.

So if it's an economic development project and the delineation between indie economic development and say DMD, DMD is community development, real estate uh development, those things that sort of naturally fit uh in the wheelhouse of uh of DMD housing.

Indy economic development's mission is job creation, job retention, uh, and to make sure that their their uh the economic development organization that's parochial and putting Indianapolis number one.

Um we wanted to make sure that we had an organization, you know, making sure that jobs get located here in every corner of the and my understanding is he did have a meeting uh up related because you asked a question about Broad Ripple the uh the last time we talked about this, and my understanding is that that meeting did take place.

So I want to make sure that we we follow through on on some of those discussions.

Thank you.

Yes one of my um uh requests last time we talked about this was that this new entity focused not just on downtown but more broadly and for my purposes um a cultural district um router ball and I did have a very I've had more than one um very productive meeting with Mr.

Shellner great majority leader lewis thank you Mr.

Chairman a couple things if that's okay with you one uh I do want to publicly thank you all for your willingness to collaborate with the council on the 2020 2026 budget um I feel like it was some really healthy conversations I know we don't always agree on everything but again just your willingness to come alongside us or allow us to come alongside you to create this budget um I really do appreciate your your efforts and I thank you for that secondly I do want to publicly thank the mayor for acknowledging the good things that are happening in city county government it's really easy for us to get bogged down on the things that are not working and turn on the news and all the good all the crazy things that happens in this building so again I do appreciate the mayor uh highlighting the good things that take place in uh local government and then a last accolade if you will I do appreciate you guys bringing on O'Connor I think he has a unique perspective when it comes to education in our community um and I know there's lots of different views about education in the city but I do believe we have a great opportunity to do something really good with IPS because it really does impact our quality of life it really does impact the city of Indianapolis and so again thank you for bringing on someone of O'Connor's caliber to the to the conversation so thank you for that so with all that good stuff uh being said not that I have anything bad to add but again thank you for all that um how I had the opportunity to be on um an 1310 um earlier today how do we how did you incorporate the community's feedback into this 2026 budget like were there neighborhood conversations how do we how do we respond to that like yeah how did you how do you prioritize their feedback into this budget well two ways uh one through all of you um given um the 25 districts you all represent but second you know um hearing through our community engagement uh team um the MAs um who are the folks who work in the administration closest closest to the ground and then um third is is uh each each department at least in city government um their activity uh in in the community in neighbors really um part of why we asked the agencies to look at what they could live without was so that we just didn't do some broad brush hey across the board cut everybody four percent the problem with that is then you start then you start affecting key programs and investments and so um hearing how people wanted to do it was was really look at those areas where there was underspend where traditionally there's underspend traditionally places where we could live without this or we could do this more efficiently and so one of the things we wanted to make sure is is we protect the key investments that this administration this council has really prioritized over the over the last uh 10 years so through all of those efforts it really kind of shaped making sure that we didn't uh you know cut muscle or or or you know cut into bone uh that that the the foundation is solid for for a lot of the programs that that you the community has come to rely on one follow-up and so last last question uh how do you address the disparities between neighborhoods and so folks feel like uh the northwest side is not really getting their share of the budget the far east side feel like they're not getting I don't know far east side feel like they're not getting their their cuts so talk to us like how do you prioritize that well I think um really indie parks has really been the sort of leader in this in terms of um using metrics um when they were looking at the Lily Endowment investment but I think when you look at um DPW um and you all got your your maps it might not been the roads that everyone thought um but it's the data that was driving it and data can really um uh get at that to make sure that we're you sort of being uh equitable in our distribution because some of the worst streets are are are are are in areas of the city that have been underinvested and so we need to make sure that we're putting more and more investment in in places where that the infrastructure is the worst so data helps us in that uh aspect um but we don't want to just rely on data because not everybody calls the mayor's action center uh and so we have to go out and get uh additional data that we go collect to make sure that we're we're putting things in the right place and investing in the parts of the city that have been underinvested okay so I'd say last question but really last quite our comment and then I'll

So data helps us in that uh aspect.

Um, but we don't want to just rely on data because not everybody calls the mayor's action center.

Uh and so we have to go out and get uh additional data that we go collect to make sure that we're we're putting things in the right place and investing in the parts of the city that have been underinvested.

Okay, so I'd say last question, but really last quite uh comment, and then I'll go on mute.

So to your point, like I appreciate you guys utilizing the data.

However, once upon a time, uh we had funding that was uh shared equally among all the district, and so there was a policy shift.

When did that happen?

Uh was there a policy policy change?

We did uh 20 the 25 million, but last year the one million per district, and that was for any project that you want.

Um it wasn't necessarily a policy shift.

Um I mean that was the underspend from the previous year.

Um, and it was last year was gonna be a tough uh uh budget cycle with the negotiations of the labor contracts.

So with that, it was there really wasn't a lot of wiggle room uh in sort of new things last year.

Uh and so that's why it was hey, let's let's do that.

Um when we did residential um uh uh streets uh a ways back, I think it was the first Circle City Ford phase that we did.

There was 25 million dollars, and it was it was um uh there was a there were metrics based on um I think it was per capita income when we distributed that money.

Um the challenge when we did it that way was there were segments uh it made projects a lot more expensive because we were trying um streets that were picked uh were all over the place and and mobilization demobilization was was pretty expensive.

So this year with with the opportunity for the um the dollars uh coming from the state, we wanted to make sure we got projects under design that were all over the city.

And so when you take a look at the the capital plan, DPW goes before the council on Thursday.

Um that capital plan shows that there are projects all over the city, no matter what it touches all 25 districts.

Thank you, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And by the way, thank you for your service on the uh education alliance.

Uh you bring a uh great unique uh perspective.

Councilor Booth.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I just want to echo two uh Madam Leaders Lewis uh appreciation of uh your efforts, Shay's efforts, Abby Hanson's efforts of meeting with us uh in a very cordial collaborative fashion.

Uh in my six years, this was the most productive engagement that we've ever had, and we think we're the most productive and efficient, and we feel much better about the process now.

And thank you very much for that.

I also I meant to do this last night, but I I want to give kudos to my fellow colleague uh counselor Nielsen here who did some very heavy lifting during this budget process process.

He is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of our budget.

And uh I was embarrassed to try to keep up with him in these meetings.

So uh he was quite a whiz, and I appreciated his involvement.

Um briefly, just following up on Councillor Barth as well.

The IEDC, you said it was uh a million dollars.

Not IEDC.

That's a that's a state organization.

I'm sorry, IEDI.

I like to say indie economic development.

Too much too many words.

Okay.

Um you said a million dollars diverted from the indie chamber, and you mentioned another component.

Uh what's the total money funded to IEDI?

I'm gonna do a phone of friend, because I know what the the dollars from uh DMD is a million dollars, Abby.

That's the only part I know too.

Um I I can get you that number, but it comes from the BNS budget because it's it's uh uh uh related to there's a position funded with the dollars from the BNS budget for a person that can help expedite uh permitting for uh economic development projects.

So uh I'm gonna make sure that um we get that number and get it to you.

I don't want to give you a number and have it be wrong.

Sure.

Um thank you.

Um couple other quick ones, Mr.

Jim.

All right.

Um can you pop up slide three, please, real quick, just the org chart and would you mind for my uh personal privilege whipping through that and just read off the current names of every of at least the deputies and directors across the board here, so we have our ducks straight.

And would you mind for my uh personal privilege whipping through that and just read off the current names of every of at least the deputies and directors across the board here, so we have our ducks straight.

Sure.

Um I'm the chief deputy mayor.

Shana Cavazos is I think Shane is here.

Sorry, I didn't recognize you earlier, I didn't have you stand.

Uh is the director of Office of Education Innovation.

Aaron Shounce is the senior policy advisor.

The two project managers uh under um Aaron are uh Craig and Alex.

Director of Communications is um Aliah Wishner.

Um Emily Kaufman is the assistant uh director, and uh Madison Foley is is the public relations officer.

The executive supervisor, that's Ned Weasel.

Director of Government Affairs is Shay Joyce.

Deputy Chief of Staff of Operations is Casey Kendrick.

Executive assistant is uh Catherine uh Willing.

Um is Catherine here.

She was upstairs.

Uh administrative assistant um is uh yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

I thought you were so I thought you were saying a different name.

I was like that's uh Peyton Jarrett.

Um special assistant is Jacob Talti.

Uh the manager of constituent services, that's the position that was vacated by Alex Nation.

We have a new uh staff person, Ashley Green, coming over from Parks to be the manager of constituent services and constituent uh services assistant.

Uh that's Cheryl's position.

Cheryl Louse.

Uh director of community outreach is is Natalie.

You saw the uh there's a diagram for all the MA's.

Uh Mayor's Action Center that's led by um Alex Rolo.

Uh and then the project assistant is going to be the new position that I said that we're we're gonna be uh uh uh assigning uh into Natalie's team.

The this uh next deputy mayor position is the one that's vacant that's being held for uh 2025 to help fund the contract for the Indianapolis uh local education alliance.

Um stay vacant throughout the year.

Uh that will that will stay vacant as long as as long as uh we have to fund uh that contract.

Uh our hope on the education alliance is that there's a plan uh well, there has to be a plan uh and a report uh by December 31st that's submitted to the um uh legislature, the secretary of um education uh and uh to the board of commissioners uh for IPS.

Um that probably will have legislative uh actions tied to it.

Um and so if that's the case um that may continue that work for Mr.

O'Connor, it may not.

Um so that position is being held right now for that.

Um I'll be perfectly blunt.

Um I've been looking for the next Judith Thomas, and I haven't found her yet.

Um so that position is vacant.

Citizens Complaint Office, that's Richard Okello.

International Team of Affairs is Ruth Morales, and veteran services is Ron Rice.

Great, thank you.

Um, the explain why the Office of Education Innovation is separated out of the chain of command, not under your authority.

Uh Shana reports directly to the mayor.

What's the policy behind that?

Uh she runs the mayor's uh um charter schools, so it is it is been it's been set up that way since the beginning of OEI.

So Shana reports directly to the mayor.

So you as a chief have no influence on any of those efforts or activities.

I meet with Shana regularly, but she she does.

I mean, there's there's certain there's certain officials in the in the cabinet that report directly to the mayor, the two chiefs, the director of OPHS and the director of OEI.

Okay.

All right.

Final question with respect to our support of uh the growth of IU in Purdue.

Is it true that you're gonna replace Lady Victory with Boilermaker Pete on top of the circle?

No.

Thank you, Mr.

You know what?

At the city, we we like cream and crimson and we like black and gold.

There you go.

Councillor Nelson.

Uh thank you, Chairman Muscari.

Uh I I'll I'll echo what the majority leader and Chairman Boots said appreciate the past few months, really past year of getting to where we're at.

I think it really is demonstrating how two co-equal branches of government can work together, and there's a lot of good in here, and I also appreciate the mayor's comments and celebrating those those big wins for our city last night.

I'll keep a lot of my comments because I know we'll be here for a while tonight in regards to uh streets to home in 1461 when we talk about the exciting investments we're making in the standalone fiscal, which I am very, very excited about.

Um but I just I wanna I I wanted to specifically point out and kind of like ditto what uh Chairman Boots was saying uh on IU and Purdue and uh really appreciate the focus on that.

I think that that is the one piece of the puzzle that we really just need to solve for the city of Indianapolis, right?

Is is how we leverage those institutions and reach the potential.

Um I had the privilege of going through Columbus, Ohio just a few weeks ago when I was on the way to Pittsburgh, um, and Pittsburgh being another city similar to Columbus, that really I think is fully leveraging higher ed that exists in there in their downtowns, and I don't think that's a a reflection of of the previous council or previous mayors or the or this administration's efforts on this, but when you have flagship campuses in your downtown, it means a whole lot different than um some uh satellite locations, but I think with this recent division of Purdue and IU, there's a real opportunity to set that to set that off to a new course.

So I just I just wanted to say I really appreciate that because I think that that's the potential there is I don't think anyone in this room really fully you know understands what the potential is there.

So I appreciate your all's focus on that.

I just wanted to really bring that forward because I think that that is as we're charting kind of the next step for our city, I think fully leveraging that is going to be very important.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I think that we can't forget the university that that is in uh counselor barr's district uh or Marion or Martin or the University of Indianapolis on the south side.

We we've we've done a lot of projects with with each of the universities, but I I mentioned this just because of the sheer growth that that um uh both Purdue and IU Indianapolis are are talking about.

And I think we need to make sure that you know some of which doesn't um hurt some of the things we're doing because if you grow the number of students, um we're gonna need to be growing the number of housing units um because um we need more housing units now.

Uh we're bringing more students in, we're gonna need even more.

So we need to make sure that that we we stay active uh in all of those discussions and that the city infrastructure really play into making sure that students uh you know, a lot of our university is a have taken advantage of our community power and infrastructure um to to look at the infrastructure around the their their campuses.

I think that Purdue and IU we're gonna have to sort of look at that even more because I think both see West Street as as sort of a barrier um for um students that are probably gonna end up living east of West Street Councillor Gaye.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh just uh a couple questions.

I will be super brief.

Uh I'm glad we're on this slide.

Is there in uh I'm really asking this more for the next proposal, but it is in you you do have the budget broken down.

Is there uh how where do where is the office of the mayor versus mayor's administration?

Is that something that is easy to understand on on this?

Um yes and no.

I mean, mayor's uh admin really funds the positions uh on the 25th floor, uh excluding um uh the Office of Education Innovation, and that's why they have a separate fund because most of their dollars come from the formula from the from the state.

Um this uh because the civilian um police complaint office is not on the 25th floor, they are funded separately uh from us on the 25th floor, and so is um the Mac is is funded through chargebacks through through everyone.

The Mac is in the overall office of the mayor, and that's that's what the the proposal that's coming sort of stipulates.

um on the 25th floor and so is um the mac is is is funded through chargebacks through through everyone the mac is in the overall office of the mayor and that's that's what the the proposal that's coming sort of stipulates what it will what that uh provision will do is allow the Mac the Mac to organize because then they will that that stipulation will not be the total mayor's office budget it will only apply to the mayor's admin so that you'll hear from um some of the folks that are supportive of the of the the confidential employee language and this is legal stuff that Brandon Bieler can answer and in Leonette um should really only apply to those those members of the mayor's office that are um on the 25th floor on a regular basis and so the insertion of that one word allows that to to take the Mac out of the equation got it okay thank you the uh next question on the Office of Education Innovation uh and and I understand their their funding sources can you uh can you just re-clarify the character three the 79 thousand dollar reduction what what is driving that and then is there's not I I is there a corresponding loss of revenue somewhere uh that is driving that or is that just 79,000 dollars more that goes into our general fund so that's 79,000 million returned to the general fund through through reserves so it's it's two factors.5 million dollars to India Chiefs um and with the changes in state law related to uh all kids being eligible for 21st century scholars they get automatically enrolled some of the dollars they were spending they didn't have to spend any more and so the first step for OEI was to right size that working with employee Indy then at the end of the end of the um and that that right sizing of that budget turned it into two million dollars that's what um they they could get out in scholarships because the the thing that we didn't want to have happen is a reduction in the actual number of scholarships out there so that was that was step one step two was when there was uh some dollars available for reinvestment this council uh funded Circle City readers for the first time with local dollars uh and that was for this current fall semester of the of the school year the budget um the budget now has four hundred thousand dollars in it for the second half of the school year which is uh you know uh the first semester of next year so for the first time we actually have it in the budget which which then keeps it in the budget so if we can continue to work on on funding Circle City readers and you'll hear all the wonderful things they're doing uh at the education committee um you heard some of it last night from the mayor um if we can get another semester in then we've got the whole calendar year covered that means the whole school year uh in the budget so they're doing tremendous work this is an education program that's working uh and we wanted to make sure that we protected it got it thank you and uh final question and I I'm asking because uh not not to be antagonistic towards the uh the efforts we're gonna hear uh about later but this is I I I'm asking this I'm a technology guy for one but I'm asking this because as we saw in the budget presentation I'll call it the uh the jaws of the alligator that Senate bill one this is this is the first cycle but the the jaws get wider as the years go on so the the conversations we're having here about what what will we fund what you know the the rate of growth will be slower but pretty much everything internal you know people are still gonna expect pay raises uh health insurance is almost certainly never gonna go down uh you know we're gonna continue to face cost side uh and now the the revenue side is is gonna be at a slower pace so my question on the mayor's action center related to character one is la this year last when we passed last year we put some significant technology investments uh and you know character five that's a that's uh pretty significant uh number and you're talking about the the way they they charge back and everything but my question is are we going to explore potential for AI call center that type of stuff where you know we have request endy that you can open all the tickets online this area seems to me ripe for significant automation where you could still and I believe that would that path could open the door for the language access that we talk about where it if it's humans we're gonna continue to struggle with the ability to uh communicate vocally in all the various languages so is is that something we could explore the Mac oh is always exploring technology to to make it more efficient I mean there are there are folks who want to call and talk to a human being that that's always going to be the case and so I think making sure that we have those folks that are available through the Mac I think is important.

I mean there are there are folks who want to call and talk to a human being that that's always going to be the case and so I think making sure that we have those folks that are available um through the Mac I think is important.

And so I think um ISA working with the Mac is is is always going to work to make sure that we're we have other alternatives for people but I think it's incredibly important for people to have a place to go to call uh as well and I guess I'm I I'm saying I I agree with calling and I and I'm not saying we'd ever get out of the the human business but I think that a significant amount of the call volume could potentially be handled automated and it potentially could be an avenue as well where it could open that 247 whereas we have you know limited hours of operation uh today so just more of I I think we're gonna continue to face the growing pressures and you know if there is nine hundred thousand dollars in character one there I'm not saying that number's gonna get to zero but I don't I don't in the foreseeable future you know next year we're gonna be hunting for a quarter or a half million dollars here and there wherever we can take it so if that's something that we might be able to explore and leverage I think we could provide a level of service that's suitable to the the public while continuing to try to because I I appreciate the the call center and people wanting to talk to humans but we are going to start to face you know do we hire uh you know police officers and uh solid waste uh drivers and things like that right and when push comes to shove which I believe we're getting to push coming to shove we're gonna have to start to make some decisions as to you know would that half million dollars be something we're we're we're gonna have to otherwise make another cut somewhere so counselor I mean thank you for for referencing sort of the push come to the shove with Senate Bill.

I mean I think that the the most incredible um piece of that we need to think about is that population growth will become the most important aspect of economic development we need people to live here um and because you have to have income tax this is the first budget where income tax was bigger than property taxes um and the growth uh to keep funding this government is gonna have to come from income taxes so a growing economy with people living in Indianapolis uh and that's the part of the reason why you know we're opposed to the to the thought of removing the residency requirement because we need to make sure that people are living in Marion County and pay um income taxes here and not have their money diverted to some other county where they live all right well thank you any other questions seeing none thank you director or deputy mayor hey I like that title whatever all right we're gonna revert back to the uh agenda a proposal 234 2025 yeah appoint Laura Larimer to the information technology board is Laura here step up we're gonna make this quick and simple thank you for volunteering you know you don't get paid for this right I do know that okay tell us a little bit about yourself ma'am yes and why you want to do it so my name is Lara Larimer um I do live here in Indianapolis I live on the northeast side um just a couple blocks north of Lawrence North High School I have spent 25 to 30 years of my career um leading large IT organizations and I am looking forward to serving and giving back some of some of the expertise I have gained as I've gone through those last 25 to 30 years.

So that's why I hope you will approve my uh nomination to absolutely any questions from the more none I entertain a motion go ahead I I I know that you sat through all of the uh the other questions I don't want to I don't want you to feel slighted um just uh thank you for uh thank you for uh serving uh I I am curious if you have any thoughts on uh as you heard earlier I'm a technology guy it is there anything that stands out to you as a as an opportunity for improvement that you hope to put your stamp on steer the ship that way not at this time I I will tell you that I come without any experience in city county government I have experience with state government so I bring a little of that expertise but I would not want to presume anything at this time and I look forward to learning much more about what's going on in city county uh IT before I would um say anything about a way in which I might want to stamp something.

Not at this time.

I I will tell you that I come without any experience in city county government.

I have experience with state government, so I bring a little of that expertise, but I would not want to presume anything at this time, and I look forward to learning much more about what's going on in city county uh IT before I would um say anything about a way in which I might want to stamp something.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Moots.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, very briefly.

Um, being uh proud that you're a D3 resident, so I would like to be added as a co-sponsor of this proposal.

And sorry that I missed you last week.

I was down the street at your national night out, and your neighbor uh Paul Dove is two doors down, I understand.

So that's right.

Yeah, so uh welcome, welcome to the position and appreciate your service.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone in the audience want to speak on this?

Seeing none, entertain a motion.

Is moving second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed, none.

Welcome.

Again, you don't get you don't get paid.

Oh shit, make sure they know that.

We we'll we'll validate your parking fee though, huh?

We do that.

No, we don't do that either.

Okay, yeah, next is proposal 235.

Uh who's gonna address that?

235 amends the section two ninety-one-2602.

Don't bump your head.

Welcome.

Hello, um, Mr.

Chairman, members of the committee.

Uh my name is Dustin Roach.

I am the president and principal executive officer for Teamsters Look 135, headquartered at Indianapolis.

We represent 12, 13,000 workers throughout the state.

Um, and to my right is David Vlink, general counsel for Teamsters Oak 135.

Thank you, Rob.

My microphone.

Yeah, as Dustin said, my.

I'm not a technology guy.

My name's David Vlink.

Uh happy to be here, happy to explain um this uh proposed amendment from our perspective um to you all um and answer any questions that you all may have.

Yeah, go ahead and explain the thank you.

So what we have here is a proposed amendment to the what I call the uh collective bargaining ordinance.

Um it's technically called the employer-employee cooperation procedure of the city code, specifically uh section 291-602.

Currently, um what this does is it it defines a list of employees who are considered confidential employees.

Okay.

Um as I I don't want to get too deep into the weeds of labor law, uh, but this comes out of, and so does the collective bargaining ordinance.

It all comes out of the National Labor Relations Act, which is sort of the the primary labor law that all collective bargaining ordinance, state ordinances are sort of based off of.

And and what it does is it it says it excludes confidential employees from the definition of employee uh in the ordinance, and in order to have collective bargaining rights under the statute, you have to be a employee.

So if you're not an employee, if you're a confidential employee, that means you don't have collective bargaining rights under the ordinance.

Um that's that's actually the fact in federal law as well.

Uh there's a very uh there's a very well-known um status of confidential employees.

And and those are basically employees who um they share a confidential relationship with managers who formulate, determine, and effectuate management policies in the field of labor relations, okay.

And and they also assist in and act in a confidential capacity to such persons.

So the best way that I can explain that to somebody would be like the director of labor relations personal secretory, personal secretary, or the CEO's personal secretary.

They they can't be in the union.

It wouldn't make any sense for them to be able to be in the union because they would be privy to confidential information that they could then turn around and pass over to the union.

And so it's really like a pragmatic thing that you know we we can't have that.

There are certain people who can't be in the unions, such as supervisors and confidential employees are one of them.

But what we have here currently is we have a group of employees in the mayor's action center who are not.

And so there's really no reason why they should not have the same rights as other similarly situated employees in the city.

But the way that the stat the ordinance is written, um, it sort of could be read to say that.

Well, since they're part of the mayor's office, they don't they don't have they don't get the same rights as everyone else, and we certainly don't believe that that should be the case.

And so um we we have organized that group, they want to be represented by our union, and we want to represent them.

Um and so we've we filed for an election under the uh under the ordinance, and what we got was um a request from the mayor's office to say, well, why don't we just clarify the the ordin uh the uh collective bargaining ordinance to make it so that um you know those folks in the mayor's action center would be able to uh to be represented.

And so I thank the the mayor's office for working with us uh on that.

Um and that's really all that this is it's it's just a way to make it so that these uh customer service representatives who are not confidential employees in any true sense of the word would have the same rights um to to organize to join union the union of their choice, just like all the other city employees.

And so I guess the what I would what I would like to say is we don't we don't think that this is really um extending collective bargaining rights to anybody who shouldn't have them.

It's actually just making it so that these employees are on the same playing field as everybody else, and that's all this is.

Um and we think if you look at it that way, it should be a no-brainer.

We really hope uh that you would all support it.

We would hope that it would be bipartisan, um and and we because we think it these these folks deserve to be represented.

Um like I said, they want to be teamsters, every single one of them wants to be a teamster.

So and we want to we want to represent them.

So with that, if you have any questions for myself or Dustin, we're happy to answer them.

Thank you.

My I guess my question is this uh cover all the unions or just the teamsters?

No, uh well, I'll take it.

So um this specifically specifically this group came to us seeking to organize uh seeking representation.

Um so we have filed that election process as David said, um, and then when we did that, um the the mayor's office and and the discussions back and forth said, hey, we need some clarification on this to make sure that this group can in fact be organized.

So they could organize with any union of their choice, um, but they have chose the Teamsters to be their representatives.

Okay, thank you.

Any other quick council barth?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I mean, I I have no concerns with the proposal I support it.

My and they the workers, the CSRs have already gone through the process of selecting you right.

So I guess my only question then to you is do you have like employees that you represent?

I'm just that's their decision, so I'm not challenging.

I'm just curious.

Do you uh have call center workers or CSRs that you represent?

Is that a content area or an area of the economy that you work in now?

Absolutely.

So we we uh Teamsters fame ourselves, right?

So we have airline pilots to zookeepers and teams local one in 35 is one of the largest locals in the country, and we in fact have airline flight attendants.

Um I don't know that we have any zookeepers yet, but yes, we have CSR representatives clerk uh clerical.

Um we just recently organized a group of uh clerical and administrative assistants at UPS and several.

So yes, this is something uh we have nurses, doctors, psychologists that are teamsters in our union.

Counselor Carlino.

Thank you, Councillor Lee, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

No, I I I'm with uh Chairman Barth.

I do support this as well, um, and would be curious to know if you've been reached out to by MAs as well, since they're in that same line.

I don't know if they're considered confidential either.

I'm getting head nods.

Um okay, if you're getting a head nods, then okay.

The boss said no, but I I'm not certain uh at that to this point, but um, if that should come up, then um then we would obviously go through that process.

Yeah, we we there's we haven't been reached out.

This the mayor's action center is the extent of this organizing that we've been doing here recently.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I was just curious.

Um Deputy Mayor Barker.

Um as I said in my presentation, we're uh obviously supportive of this proposal, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh, but I want to uh make sure that everyone understands it's our intention with a due pass recommendation tonight and uh and a passage at full council that we would recognize the organizing efforts of the Teamsers local 135 and we need to immediately progress to the next phases of that.

So the organizing that's already occurred, we will recognize upon the passage of of this uh of this proposal, and if there's any technical questions from the uh city side, we'll have uh brand new dealership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um your professional opinion, if this goes through and everything's ratified, do you see that the rights of the Mac employees will be better protected and they'll get better pay?

I would certainly hope so.

That's that is typically the um reasoning for negotiators for uh representation.

I encourage everybody to support this proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, that that is uh that is the reason for our very existence, and that's that's what we do all day every day.

That's what we focus on 100%.

Minority leader bar Brown blah blah blah.

Mallory.

I'm I'm trying to read the text from somebody thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um kind of figure backing off counselor boots question there with the raising their pay, um, and this might be one for Dan.

Do we have that already figured into the budget for a potential pay raise for this this group?

Uh well Dan's not up here, but I I can tell you typically that's all subject to negotiations, but I don't want to answer for the city.

So yeah, there's not been any discussions about any type of contract or what the contract would look like.

That happens.

Kind of piggybacking off that question.

What do like union dues look like for one of these employees?

How much would that affect their paycheck if they so union dues are always 100% entirely voluntary on the part of any employee, no employee uh in this country, in fact, uh in in the public sector and in Indiana in all sectors is ever required to pay a dime of union dues.

So I think that's the most important thing.

Absolutely 100%.

The the there's a legal doctrine called the duty of fair representation, which requires the union to represent all of the members of the bargaining unit, whether they are members of the union or not, equally.

Okay.

And Dan, did you know if there is a plan, if there is, would you have to come back for an additional appropriation for a potential pay raise?

So built in built into the uh budget is a uh colour for for non-union employees and controller can uh uh let you know what that percentage is.

That's built into the budget.

We would still have to sit down and negotiate with with the Teamsters upon passage of this to actually get a uh collective parking agreement, which would then as uh Dustin said, would have to be uh negotiated and agreed to by both management and the unit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions from counselors seeing that anyone from public can like speak on this?

Seeing none, I'd like to entertain a motion.

So it's been moved and seconded.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye, opposed, none.

Thank you.

Thank you guys so much.

Thank you very much.

Up next is proposal 274.

Who's representing that bringing it up there?

Here I thought Dan Parker had to take his wife out to eat.

That's why you went and let you up front.

Welcome.

Abby, we seen you last night.

You had the floor.

Okay, thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and members of the committee.

I think you know who I am, but it's going.

It's not doing anything.

Oh, yeah.

Just move and slow.

Okay, so this proposal is the first in a two-step process to realign our income tax allocation to put this proposal into context.

I want to first start with how our income tax is currently structured.

The income tax distribution starts with the certified distribution, which is the amount guaranteed that we will receive for the coming year for 2026.

That is 658 million dollars.

That distribution, you're going too fast.

That distribution is then allocated to the different sub tax rates, which is the second tier of boxes here.

Finally, those buckets are then distributed to units of government based on statutory formulas.

I included the types of taxing units that receive each type of income tax distribution.

The income tax rate this proposal focuses on are the levy freeze and property tax relief rates.

Due to legislative changes, both of these rates are no longer will no longer exist in the new income tax structure.

So before diving into the mechanics of the proposal and the reason behind it, I wanted to visually show you that the rate paid by citizens, which is that very top number, 2.02%, will not change.

The graph compares the rate of each income tax bucket as it is today on the left compared to what it will be with this proposal on the right.02%.

And that means that what residents pay does not change.

The piece that is changing is how we choose as the local income tax council to spend the dollars we receive in income taxes.

This slide displays the rate shifts.

So now you're seeing the rate shifts and you're also seeing the distribution associated with each of these different rates for nothing happening, which is on the left side and with the rate shift on the right side.

So without this proposal on the left side, we would have $9.3 million in the levy freeze stabilization fund, which is essentially a savings account tied exclusively to that tax bucket.

And that fund is going to be phased out by 2028 as a part of Senate Bill.

And because of the phase out, we plan to spend out half of the existing fund balance in 2026 with the intention of using the remainder of it in the 2027 budget process.

So that will get our stabilization fund balance down to zero before it phases out entirely.

Under the rate shift scenario, we are increasing distributions to the should certified shares and public safety income tax rates, which is allocated across townships, included, excluded, and excluded cities, and then the city county by $16 million.

We are also shifting the entire property tax relief rate to the public safety rate.

And I'm going to talk about that more on the next side.

The net effect of the shift is to free up additional funds for essential government services with a particular focus on supporting our public safety officers and protecting our union contracts.

Just to be really clear about how the rates are changing, I wanted to give you some arrows to see where things are moving.

So the levy freeze rate is being split, the rate associated with the levy freeze reduction, which is 0.0181, is half is going to COET and half is going to public safety.

And then all of the property tax relief rate is being shifted to public safety.

So first I want to make the distinction that property tax credits are spending decisions.

Administrations and city councils before us chose to spend our income tax revenue on providing credits to property tax bills and ultimately to homeowners.

With the changes that Senate Bill 1 has brought, it necessitates us to rethink what our spending decisions are.

Today, 66% of homeowners do not benefit from this credit directly, meaning their property tax bill doesn't change because of the credit at all.

Of the 12.7 million in income tax we spend on this, only 1.7 million directly reduces property tax bills in any way.

The remainder of those funds are allocated to other units of government to reduce their circuit breaker losses.

That means those tools aren't available to us anymore.

And one of the ways that Senate Bill One provides property tax relief is a credit very similar to this one on property tax bills.

But unlike the credit that we have the opportunity to use, this one, so our credit is applied before circuit breaker.

The new credit is an applied in addition to circuit breaker.

So think of it more like a final promo code on your tax bill.

Your tax bills calculated, and then at 10% is just automatically taken off of that.

In Marion County, this credit, the new credit, is valued at a little over 17 million dollars in direct taxpayer property tax relief.

So while the relief mechanism is different, the overall dollar value and impact of property tax relief will be greater under the new Senate Bill One changes.

Senate Bill One doesn't have a funding mechanism, so that's a direct reduction in the property tax revenue that local governments will collect in their budget.

And that unfunded cut unfunded credit meant this change was necessary to balance the budget without significant cuts to services.

So to reiterate the purpose of this proposal, we're changing the income tax rates for two purposes.

First, we are reducing the levy freeze rate in order to spin down our 2025 supplemental distribution and half of our stabilization fund, but still maximizing the amount of money we need to give to local units because there is a cap on how much we can distribute for levy freeze.

And then second, we are reallocating the property tax relief rate to the public safety rate.

The levy freeze rate change has this special provision in state law that requires the council to provide an authorization for me to reach out to the Department of Local Government Finance to double check my math essentially to make sure that the rate we're submitting is correct, and then we have to come back, and again, you have to take the action to officially adopt the rate.

So this is just giving me the authorization to reach out to the DLGF and get their sign off on the rate change.

Any questions?

Thank you, Abby.

I have a simple question.

Mike, Senate Bill None is affecting all these small cities or across the whole state.

We're we're fortunate to be a giant city.

You take Hope, Indiana or Osgood, Indiana.

How are they going to survive in two years?

It's gonna be a real issue for those folks.

Uh I really feel that the um statehouse is going to make some kind of adjustment just because of that.

But we'll have to wait and see.

Counselor Maori.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I received an email today from the CFO for MSD of Warren Township Schools.

Uh they had a concern that this proposal would uh negatively affect them to the tune of roughly about 300,000 if this was to pass.

Um I didn't have a chance.

I got the email kind of later in the day, so I didn't have a chance to connect with them to really understand what where he was uh getting all the numbers from.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Because he said he had talked to you, said you were super nice, he enjoys conversation.

So that's that goal for us.

Yes, yes.

Um, so I did talk to Matt Parkinson, the CFO for MSD Warren.

Um, yes, it it is true.

The property tax relief, if it is not helping a homeowner actually reduce their bill, that money then becomes property tax revenue, and so then it gets distributed based on the property taxes.

Um it is true, I I can tell you though, that the while it is a $300,000 estimate um decrease, that's about 0.5% of their property tax levy.

I'm not saying that every dollar doesn't matter because I stood before you last night and told you that every dollar mattered, but um it we were just in a situation where this rate is going away, and it felt like the right time to make this change instead of delaying it.

I appreciate that.

And do you know how this would then affect other school systems that would be potentially negatively effective with this change?

Um, it's similar.

The impacts to the estimated impacts to schools are about a half a percent.

They vary by district, but that's our estimate.

Okay.

And then just for clarification, you said that 60 cents 66% of homesteads will not be impacted.

What is that threshold and who and who is and who isn't impacted?

If you are not at your cap, if your tax bill does not hit your 1% cap, then you would be impacted.

If you are over the cap, you are not impacted.

Okay.

So varies wildly.

It's very specific to a homeowner.

Okay.

Thank you.

Counselor Lee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, and thank you, Madam Controller, for your presentation.

My question is in that same vein of Leader Maori, not just the impact on schools, and just to clarify, Abby, I think you said it was half a percent because of Senate Bill, or half a percent because of what we're doing here today.

Half a percent from this from this.

And then thank you for clarifying that.

And then in terms of local government units, towns included and excluded.

Is that is that as well roughly the estimation of a half a percent, or is that is that different for those?

So schools are one of the only units that I don't have the ability to allocate income tax dollars to in the traditional mechanism.

So we are shifting the rates to certified shares and to public safety income tax included cities and excluded cities will benefit, also benefit from this change.

So it is going to negatively impact them on the property tax side, but positively impact them on the income tax side for their direct allocations for public safety dollars.

Yes.

You mean if I may, Mr.

Chairman?

So essentially a town, you know, like Claremont, who isn't in their own police service district, could be pretty negatively impacted because they don't get some of those.

Included cities receive public safety income tax, even Claremont receives it.

So those dollars go up, but the property taxes go down.

Okay.

Yes, thank you.

My estimate is net positive between the reduction in property and the increase in income.

Did you have a percentage on the the town's one?

I do not.

I do not.

Can you have that if this is approved when you talk to DLGF or to have those conversations?

I know you're not at that step yet, but um definitely my support will hinge on those conversations moving forward after the conversations are had.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Councilor Maori.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

One uh quick follow-up here.

You said this is scheduled to sunset, I believe, 27 or 28, I think you said.

So is basically what we're doing now is ripping the band-aid off and getting it done before it sunsets.

That's where if we just left it alone, it would eventually sunset anyway.

Yes, and I would say one of the things that we were thinking about is as you think about the impact to property taxes.

If you see the state credit come on and people see their tax bill go down, and then this goes away, like what does that happen to their tax bill?

And so we were thinking, like, if we did it at the same time, it mitigates anything that could happen instead of giving them two credits and then bam, one credit goes away.

Why'd you take my credit away?

Well, I didn't have a choice.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, anyone from the public like speak on this.

See none, entertain a motion.

It's moved and seconded.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

All right.

Thank you, Abby.

Thank you.

Well, we're done with all the proposals and up next is budget hearing.

We we will skip over the mayor's office since we already did it.

Office of finance and management, you're on you're on the clock.

Okay.

Oh, you're back.

You never left.

I didn't go anywhere.

But I don't know, maybe after tonight, I would we will get a break from each other.

A lot of pictures in the slide.

I know.

All right.

So I want to start with what OFM's division or what our department actually looks like.

Um, we are made up of four divisions, and as I walk through the org chart, you will get to see the work that they do every day to serve our other agencies and departments.

So, first is our budget division.

This picture here is our whole budget team.

It is a shockingly small but mighty team for the size of our budget.

So they oversee external audits and the completion of our financial statements, and then finally revenue recovery who serve as the central collection agency on outstanding debt of the city county.

And then we have our human resources team who oversees benefits, talent, training, uh employee relations, comp and record for most of the city county.

And then finally, we have the administrative and real estate division, which is made up of real estate, risk, purchasing, and our newest function is archives.

We currently have 74 employees on staff, and that includes 14 managers.

We have two positions we are actively recruiting for.

The pie chart on the top right shows our employee gender makeup and like the mayor's office.

We are largely run by females.

Um I'm proud of our diversity within our overall department.

So two other facts that I'm really proud about our staff is that we have a high internal mobility.

39% of our staff have been promoted just within our department in the last nine years, and our average staff tenure is six years, which I don't think is too too bad.

Um then finally we prioritize our employee development and our workplace culture through targeted training opportunities, team building events.

We actually have an HR retreat in like two days, um, and holiday pitch-ins for both normal and sometimes obscure holidays.

Uh we also foster a positive environment by celebrating achievements throughout the year and for tenure.

Here on the slide are some of our accomplishments over this last year.

The first two having an award-winning financial documents and spending all of our uh stimulus funds.

I really covered more in depth last night.

But we have had some other exciting accomplishments.

We are 26% under budget on the jail one demo because of some really excellent, excellent competitive procurement.

We collected 32% more in investment and interest than we budgeted last year.

Our risk division had a 66% increase in defensive driver participation and a hundred and seventy-seven percent increase in their OSHA 10 hour training.

And I'm proud that HSHR has had a 43% increase in their 457B enrollment this year, and also has we've successfully hired 47 people from talent from the talent showcase.

This accomplishment is so big that I think it deserves its own slide.

We rose recently wrote a policy that defines our fund balance policy targets.

The council has approved a fund balance minimum in 2016, and we have had discussions at different times about what is the right amount of fund balance.

My office never felt comfortable that the minimum fund balance target was enough, but we also recognize that holding on to substantial reserves doesn't serve our community well.

So by implementing the policy targets, which are we're setting those at 5% above our minimums.

Um we should be able to maintain our strong credit rate credit rating.

I say should, that sounds um not confident enough that we will be able to uh maintain our strong credit ratings.

And then as you notice, there is a recognition in these graphs that there is an excess above our target, and that has been built by years of fiscal stewardship and purposefully conservative revenue estimates and underspending.

I will say I'm not certain that this will continue because we're gonna have tighter budgets in 2026.

I just am not sure that the underspend that we've had in prior years is going to continue to materialize at the same way.

So I want to be cautious about spending down this surplus all on one thing or at one time, but I want to be clear that I reckon I welcome collaboration in determining what is an appropriate spin down of excess balances.

So our finance office touches a number, touches our office touches capital projects in a number of different ways throughout the financial process.

So we have made substantial updates and changes to our government facilities, and my team has played a really big role in these projects.

So I just wanted to highlight some cool pictures of different things that we've done.

Um I would say that the jail demo, watching that from above was extremely fun, and I enjoyed it greatly.

And now we'll get to see a building be built there instead.

And then we are also playing a role in projects that are happening out in our community right now.

And so here are photos that we have in the process or we just finished in the last year.

A lot of OFM's core mission is really internally focused, but there are moments that we get to interact with the community.

Hiring is obviously one of those categories.

So HR has attended 22 job fairs this year, and we are also participating in employee Indies Modern Apprentice Program, where we host a high school student for multiple years.

And then this year, our Archivist launched Indiology, an archaeology and historic preservation internship program with eight local high school students.

In the financial management realm, I'm personally proud of the communication that we had with our community partners as we closed out ARPA.

Throughout ARPA, there were a number of key staff turnovers that shaped that had shaped the program from its infancy.

And OFM staff kind of ended up being the people who were consistent as we were wrapping things up.

So we were able to establish relationships with people, work with our sub-recipients to identify the funds they were not expecting to spend, and then close out our programs in a timely manner earlier earlier this year.

Purchasing works with the business community along with OMWBD through our vendor outreach, and they have continued to host annual vendor open houses to strengthen business relationships and inform local vendors of contracting opportunities.

The next one, online bidding portal, is a bit more of a goal, but we are in the process of working with ISA to implement a portal that will allow vendors to submit their bids electronically.

So it'll provide greater opportunity to XBE vendors and minimize common mistakes that people make that get them disqualified.

And the system also has a multi-language, the ability to have take documents in multiple languages, so uh a little easier for bidders who have limited English proficiency.

Then finally, we have expanded our community outreach opportunities in the archive division.

While they aren't yet open for just walk-in customers, they have responded to 356 reference questions and have taken on records equal to 5,600 uh linear feet of material.

So sifting through that and identifying what's important to retain.

Um we've given tours to of the collection and have presented nearly 20 talks, uh, talking to almost two uh 600 people.

So then talking about our goals for 2026, um, one of the things that I'm excited we were able to include in our budget is a software that will allow us to centralize how we track and manage fleet-related accidents across all our departments.

Today it's decentralized, and um, this is actually a recommendation of the Vision Zero Task Force.

I can't remember the whole name.

Implementation plan or something along those lines.

Um but it will give us real-time visibility into our incident trends, help us identify areas for safety improvements and reduple and reduce either duplicate or incomplete reporting.

Um, it will also allow us to strengthen our work with insurers and improve our recovery rates and reduce our cost of accidents over time.

Um another data collection goal is to that that that will inform our driver safety training programs so we can make updates based on like, oh, we're having a bunch of these accidents, so we will train away from those things.

And with the release of the diversity study fairly soon, purchasing will be able to use those insights to inform where there are gaps in our vendor outreach.

We will also continue expanding our relationships with vendors through purchasing with the goal of training 60 new vendors next year.

Um along the lines of enhancing access.

Uh the customer service center is something that OFM has been in the planning stages of here in the city county building.

Um, but we're hoping to overcome some logistical hurdles to improve that would improve residents' access to the city service in a one-stop customer service area that would be staffed by the common departments where people need to come in and get in-person services, and also improve wayfinding and language support for non-English speakers.

So having a benefit fair and educational workshops to strengthen employee engagement with our benefit offerings, increase our participation in 457 plans more, and look at some other wellness initiatives that we can implement to launch health focused challenges and just support uh the well-being of our workforce.

And do more consistent exit interviews that allow us to get insights from that on an enterprise-wide basis.

With that, I will turn it over to Jake to go through the numbers of 11 budget.

Good evening.

As Abby said, my name is Jake McVeigh.

I'm the budget director with an OFM, and I get to talk about OFM's budget for 2026.

Compared to 2025, OFM's budget is decreasing by 6%, which is about $858,000.

550 of that is due to decreases in our ISA and building authority rent chargeback, and then the rest was identified during the budget process as part of our reserve.

The table here quickly shows our budget by character and fund, characters one through five on the top, personnel, supplies, services, capital and internal city chargebacks, and then that first row is our consolidated county general fund budget, which is the majority of OFM's budget, followed by our special revenue budget, federal and state grants, and then called, which stands for capital asset lifecycle and development.

As uh Abby mentioned previously.

Um this is the uh central collection agents agent for the enterprise responsible for for recovering costs owed uh to the city county.

Um this division works with other agencies within the enterprise to support their collection processes for 2026.

We're um anticipating growth in those fees, um totaling that's about $600,000.

And then OFM uh budgets uh revenue from our purchasing division.

Uh some of uh $56,000 of that is for the uh purchasing card program managed through the purchasing division, and then um about $68,000.

We're anticipating in the sale of uh surplus assets.

I wanted to touch briefly on our um grants for uh that we currently have uh that are part of our revenue uh showing grants followed by the funding agency, uh the amount in the which they've been received, uh, and then the start and end date.

Uh the JAG awards are used to assist our law enforcement and criminal justice agencies.

Uh the 20 million from IHCDA is being used to construct the uh low barrier shelter, and then the uh 852,000 from DOT will be used to assess the city's uh public property for development and uh additional grant opportunities.

All right.

So I'll the next few slides.

I'll go to summarize the changes by character.

Um for 2026, uh, our character one budget uh funds the 2.6% cost of living adjustment for um that's in the budget for all non-union employees uh plus the 5.6% increase to health insurance premiums.

Uh, in order to uh fund these increases, uh, we identified three positions within our current budget to keep vacant for 2026.

Uh not much uh change in character two.

Um the reduction is part of our uh reserve identified at the beginning of the budget process.

Um reduction in character three reflects our decreases to our ISA chargeback and building authority rent for 2026.

OFM's proposed budget maintains the uh drug-free community wards at uh the current year appropriation of 200,000 dollars, and we're doing this by um supplementing that with opioid settlement dollars.

So uh fees into the drug-free community fund have declined over the past few years, and that trend is projected to continue into 2026.

So this shift of $50,000 of appropriation from drug-free to um opioid is reflected here in the state grants appropriation where um the opioid uh settlement dollars live.

Uh there's no change in our federal grants budget or our uh capital asset lifecycle and development budget.

The 500,000 appropriated there is used for um capital projects um in collaboration with building authority.

Likewise, uh like character two, the character four decrease is part of our reserves identified, and then uh there's a slight increase in character five uh for our um Office of Corporation Council charge back.

And with that, we're happy to take questions.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

I have one question about the grants.

Um the little barrier shelter grant is a 20 million dollars.

Start date one to uh one of 25 and end date of 1231 of 26.

Have we even built this building?

No.

I mean, are we going to have any problems with this with the state not to throw Aaron shouts under the bus, but she is the one who is working directly with the um the state on this grant.

I don't have any reason to have concerns.

It did live in OFM's budget purely for like logistical purposes, it just kind of made sense for us to hold the funding as the real with the real estate division.

Um but there we closed on a the piece of property that was needed, and so you know work continues, but yes, I recognize I'm scared of the the state can give us, but they can take it.

So uh one other question about the grants.

Do you foresee any issues that the federal or state grants in the procession in the next year or even further?

We're taking away everything.

We've spent a lot of time contemplating, thinking, uh I shouldn't say worrying, but you know, being cautious about that.

Uh I would not say we have experience grant grants being removed, they've been a little delayed in offering uh opportunities to apply for things, but not so far.

Thank you.

Any questions, Council Counselor uh Nilson Nielsen?

Thank you, Chairman.

Um just a few comments and like one hopefully very quick question.

Um first I just wanted to uh commend uh Jordan for her work with the Indiology uh students.

I had the opportunity uh to sit with them one day and was just really inspired that young people can beat that into that.

I mean, it was it was really motivating and a great reset.

So I just wanted to say what a creative uh program that was really cool to see up front.

Um I encourage my my colleagues to ask more about that.

Um next, and this might be a uh question for Brett.

I know he's out.

I think I saw no there he is.

Was on the Kroger payment option for city debts.

So um just by my initial question is is that that's a that's a low cost or free option, right?

For for city debts, is that correct?

That's yes, free free option.

Yes, free option.

Um it just gives people the ability to make a payment uh in cash, if that's what how you need to make your payment, and not have to come to the city county building.

And and I thank you, controller.

I wanted to highlight that as well because um I never want the city to be in the business of predatory lending and other uh concerning trends that other municipalities don't participate in these kind of payment options, and so I think it's uh a way for us to be smart and reflective of some of the challenges in our community um who maybe are uh unbanked or underbanked, and this is a friendly option that they can access uh at Kruger locations around our our city.

So just another, I think really positive thing that I know is very in the weeds, but I think really important.

Um, you know, I in my district, for example, we're home to a proliferation of not just gas stations but also payday lenders and check caching locations.

So I I really try to highlight this resource and really just want to commend OFM for for standing this up.

Uh, these small little things have very large impacts um on our neighbors.

Um next, I wanted to ask about for the um revenue recovery division.

Um do we know I I guess how much is outstanding?

Can we maybe put a little bit of it in in context?

And I know that that's a complicated question because I've I don't know if some of that lives in the courts or if that's separate from you all, but I just kind of wanted to in perspective of like what are we talking about, what are some of the barriers in order to be able to fully collect.

I know I just made the comment about um Kroger payment option, but I I still think um as we're looking to plug up budgets and things, that's a nice place to start.

So just any any comments that you have on that, please.

I will I will take a step, but if there's someone in my um from my staff, and I should have recognized that many of my staff are behind me, and I was remiss in not saying that.

Um we only know about the debt that agencies bring us into, and so there has been a at times a disconnect between agencies realizing where the we are an opportunity for them to help them collect outstanding debt.

I do not know how much outstanding debt we have, but that is a valid question we can try our best to answer for you at some point.

Yeah, I think I just think being a just being able to understand that a little bit more.

I know that with some of it occurring in the courts that that's where you know there's the clerk's responsibility, potentially like and I I just think as we're trying to solve some of those things, you know, uh that's concerning for me is um being in ensuring that, for example, uh absent landlords who are charged, you know, we finally are successful in environmental court, they're issued a fine.

And I I know that some of that may have nothing to do with OFM, but I just think as a strategic point of view, um both capturing fines as a as a revenue generator and also as a deterrent, I think is the ultimate policy goal uh with this uh to some uh things we don't would be having in our community.

So I just uh something that I'll continue to kind of want to talk about a little bit more, but um yeah, just any sort of context as a follow-up would be helpful.

Yeah, and uh I guess I do want to say that I did recognize maybe three or four months ago that there probably was a little bit of a disconnect between or just turnover and and city finance staff.

So we did have um we're going to have Rodney uh the manager of revenue recovery present to the CFOs and just be like we have this opportunity, and you know, we can help you collect your debt.

So they uh agencies who collect the revenue are the first line, and if they're unsuccessful, then they can turn it over to our team who has a little more um experience doing that.

And so I think the first part is just making sure that all the agencies and departments know that we have this resource available.

So we're gonna start there.

Okay, thank you, controller.

And Mr.

Chairman, just one more very quick question.

This might be for uh the budget director.

Um you talked about uh a character three, excuse me.

I don't uh slide 15.

Is the plug-up for using opioid in state grants for drug re community?

Is that a one-time thing, or is that something that we're gonna have to kind of be mindful of going forward?

So as uh as we continue to look at um not just like drug-free, but our opioid distributions um over the next several years.

Um we're anticipating some uh uh changes with additional settlements, and um do need to be thoughtful on how that um on how we allocate those those additional funds.

Um I am confident in that able to support the uh this appropriation in 26 and in 2027.

Um looking at that each year, um you know, we reassess what uh what the priorities are and um you know maybe there's a an excellent idea of using the opioid funds next year um that factors into the conversation.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Follow-up question comment.

So we have watched those funds decrease over the years.

Do we know the impact that that has had on the grantees over the last few years?

Again, I feel like this has been pretty consistent the last five, eight, I've been around for a minute now, so well, quite some time now, right?

I don't know the answer to that question.

I know we spent some time after last year's budget trying to figure out what was causing it, and it seemed like it was a combination of the courts not always levying the fines.

Um I don't I don't know the answer to that your question, but I think it is a fair question, and I think that's why we have chosen to uh keep the allocation steady for next year so that there's not this like up and down swing because I I I if we had reduced it based on the revenue we're gonna bring in, we would have had to have that up and down swing.

Is it possible to get some type of update from drug free that votes over at drug free just to see again what that new pack has been?

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Councillor Lee.

I appreciate that, Mr.

Chairman, and I agree, Madam Leader, that um I believe the additional 50 was possibly an additional FTE.

So if that's a like a loss of someone's job, I think that's really important to have that conversation.

So I appreciate that.

I do think because those um opioid dollars are sort of earmarked for certain things.

It to me it only makes sense to support drug-free Marion County.

I know that commission and committee is doing really great work, and maybe they aren't aware of some of the things that we could be supporting, um, and maybe even organizations that they would like to lean on heavier, but but can't.

So I would be supportive of that conversation too.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Any other questions, counselors?

Anyone from the public can like speak on this or questions about it?

No.

Wouldn't be.

Well, Abby, thank you very much.

We have one more to go.

Up next is Office of Equity and Belongings and inclusion.

Welcome.

I know.

I like that.

You have the floor.

Go ahead and tell us your name and just for the audience.

Absolutely.

Uh thank you all for having me this evening.

My name is Ben Tapper.

I serve as the Chief Diversity and Equity Officer for the City of Indianapolis, and I oversee our Office of Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion.

Uh we're a small agency, and so we're at the end of the night.

This should be short.

Uh our main goal as an agency is to help other departments and agencies align their systems and culture so that they can expand access, opportunity, and belonging throughout the enterprise and then uh throughout Marion County as well.

And we do that by targeting four key pillars operations and innovation, data and evaluation strategies and learning, and community and culture.

And so you'll notice from those pillars that the vast majority of our work is internal facing, meaning we are looking to serve our employees and the employees of the city of Indianapolis and figure out how we can improve access, belonging, and inclusion for the employees.

A brief overview of the staffing structure.

This has not changed since last year when I presented before you, and so there are still four employees total, including myself.

Uh the other three are our language access program manager, our uh equity training manager, and our equity analyst.

Most of our staff, uh actually all of our staff complete annual uh professional development and training, and we have a culture of continued learning and improvement.

Highlighting some of our programmatic successes this year, we have expanded our training uh to include more agencies and staff.

Uh and so uh by the end of the year we anticipate having trained 230 to 270 employees just this year alone and year to date from 2024 until today, we've already trained 270 employees.

And you can see a list of agencies and departments that these trainings have um that we've worked with for these trainings, including IFD, DMD, OPHS, DPW, uh, as well as the lead fellowship and animal care services.

We also finally launched the city's first language access program uh plan this year.

I've been talking about that for a couple years.

Uh uh Council Cahill, I want to shout you out because you met with Carla, our language access program manager, and then they said you all had a great conversation and appreciated the collaboration and the insight you were able to provide.

And so we're proud that that's been launched, and we continue to work with staff across the enterprise to understand the needs when it comes to language access, whether that's translation or interpretation services for public meetings, um, or community-based services uh so that residents can access the information uh of the city of Indianapolis.

And then finally, we continue to work to ensure that we are capturing the necessary demographic data uh that we need from our employees.

And so uh for a long time we've done very basic demographic data, gender, race, and ethnicity.

We've expanded those offerings this year so we not only uh understand uh more nuanced um picture of what race and ethnicities our employees are coming from, uh nuanced pictures of the gender identity, um, but also trying to capture some information about country of origin because Indianapolis continues to be a diverse city, our workforce continues to be more diverse.

Um, and it's important to understand that diversity, so we know how we have to shift to meet our employees' needs.

And so that's why we want to capture that expanded information.

And then we do some community engagement and outreach, uh, some around our language access work.

Uh we are cooperating with the newly launched Cradle Indy, which is an entity that is supported by IU Health and designed to help bring together all the partners that uh work on maternal health.

And so they are working to bring us all together so that we're sharing data, sharing information to coordinate our efforts to improve outcomes like infant mortality in Marion County.

Um, and as I've mentioned for a couple years now, that's something our agency is working on as well, and trying to connect with healthcare providers, and so we've connected with Cradle Indy.

Uh, and then we also have several other organizations throughout the uh city county that we connect with uh that represent various identity groups um and constituency groups.

Briefly touching on some of our goals for 2026 as we look ahead.

We do want to continue to expand our training capacity and cadence.

Uh the demand continues to grow, and so we want to be able to meet that demand as much as we're able to with our uh small staff.

Uh, one of the ways we're doing that this year is is by um continuing to offer the one-off trainings as agencies and departments asked for them, but we're also creating a standing uh half-day trainings that are just kind of a block of time around a specific topic that people can register for in advance.

And so we we continue to try to think about ways that we can offer a diverse range of training opportunities to meet the needs of the workforce.

We are have been supportive and will continue to support the rollout of the enterprise-wide cultural assessment.

Uh, I don't know if y'all uh saw that come through, but on Monday, we send an email out uh to the enterprise, and we want to do what we're calling uh a vibe check of our workforce here to understand the attitudes, thoughts, opinions, beliefs about what it means and how people feel to work for the city of Indianapolis.

Again, that way we can get that information and replicate what's working really well and start to target and change what might not be working as well.

And so we'll we'll continue to support those efforts.

Uh and then we want to continue to grow our employee resource groups.

Finally, a breakdown of the budget.

Um, and again, because we're so small, our budget is fairly simple.

The big picture takeaway that I really want you to understand is that our budget is decreasing as every other budget is by about 35,000 this year.

Um so we are seeing that decrease, and all of that actually is coming out of our character three, uh, which we use for professional development, uh training, and then some consultant work.

So, character one, we have a slight increase due to COLA and health insurance.

We haven't added any staff, they're making the same salaries, so this is just a uh gradual growth.

Character two, no changes.

Character three, uh actually a decrease in character three by 58,000.

So uh we did see a large decrease there, and again, that's coming out of our uh our training budget for the most part and our ability to hire consultants.

Uh and then characters four and five, we we didn't see a change from last year.

More questions do we have?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh any question, Council Council Lewis.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, thank you for your presentation and all of your efforts.

So I noticed your breakdown demographics of your of your team members, and I thank you for doing that.

However, you we continue to have the conversation about expanding employee demographics data.

Where is that data?

Do you do you not have a slide on enterprise why what we look like?

We uh I haven't had one in our presentation um for the last few years.

Typically, agencies, yes, we did talk about it last year.

Um, but there was a good reason we talked about it last year.

Um, so it's it's a fair question.

Typically, agencies will present on the demographics of their departments, um, and so we leave that to them.

But we do have the equity dashboard that is on the city's website that is tracking in real time the demographics of our entire enterprise.

So I'm glad to hear that I'm consistent.

Um but I do think that it would be nice if you presented it because I feel like that's your department, right?

And again, I appreciate hearing from the individual departments.

But again, if if if you're the owner of this data, this information, it's great that it's on the on the website.

But again, as you're presenting the budget and all the great things that you're doing, it would really nice if you incorporate it in your in your presentation.

I'll make a note of that for next year.

Thank you.

All right, next year.

I got you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Councilor Boots.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you, Director Tapper.

Um, you mentioned a bullet point, you support some neighborhood advocacy groups, and you mentioned particularly Devington and Brendan Park.

Can you expand a little bit?

Uh I've been getting more involved with some of the East 56 street activities, and that's Devington in Brendan Park, and curious um what you're doing there.

Yeah, so we're playing a support role.

Uh we were reached out to either late last year or earlier this year by some of the residents in Devington, and they kind of shared with us what had been going on with the developer, how they've got a plaza they want to develop, but the um the owner of the the land is not willing to sell.

Um and so there was some frustration, and so we uh connected with them and then re-engaged uh DMD and brought them into the conversation, and so we were able to reconnect uh that neighborhood group with DMD.

And since then we're slowly taking steps back because they're not as direct of a role for us to play, but we're still involved in the discussions just to make sure that the residents feel heard and seen, and to in case there are any roadblocks that come up, we can kind of play that mediator and and and see what the most direct route to to getting their needs and vision is the comment I would have there is uh I'm not sure to me that sounds like it's right up your wheelhouse or this part of your corporate mission.

Um I like what you're doing though in that regard though, because that's needed in the neighborhood groups I work with are often uh loose flailing in the wind.

Yes, and tethering them down and directing them in the right place is a big thing, but uh I would just maybe just suggest being careful not getting too far afield in that because there are other agencies and counselors' jobs and MA's that really that is their job.

So I would just suggest uh not get because you have a specific mission, a very important one.

I just wouldn't want you to lose sight of that.

Absolutely, and I don't want to lose sight of it either.

Uh again, with a very small staff, we have to be very intentional.

Um so I can share why we chose to step into this because we don't say yes to everything.

Um when I think about what equity means, the simplest definition I can give is removing barriers.

Um and sometimes the best way to do that is to facilitate conversations.

Um and so we saw this as a short-term opportunity to step into an area of the city that uh at least hasn't felt and I would argue has not received investment in the ways that other areas of the city have, uh, and we wanted to make sure that we supported that.

But I I totally agree, and we're very vigilant over how we use our time and resources.

All right, thank you.

Counselor Allen.

A couple questions for you.

I know there was supposed to be some type of partnership between your office and health and hospital um health equity zone.

Where is that at?

Are you uh counselor?

I know they changed the name of it within the last few months, um, and that's with Ted Grain and um Dr.

I can't think of her first name, but she took over the position over at the Health and Hospital Corporation, and I know there was supposed to have some type of partnership between you all, and I wanted to know what you know what stuff for y'all at the same time.

So we haven't been um cooperating with Eskenazi uh on the health equity zone per se.

We have been learning about it.

We have been in talks with Eskenazi uh about maternal health initiatives and trying to understand how to to work with Eskenazi, IU Health, Cradle ND, um uh and other health care entities to drive down infant mortality rates.

Uh and so those are the conversations that we've been involved in, and and President Osley has asked me to come to an upcoming uh caucus meeting to share more with you all about those efforts.

Uh Leader Maury, I'm happy to come to the caucus as well if you would like.

My second question is for the language access, because I know my district has several patients in my district.

So how because I know one of your staff members reached out to me for meeting and no response when I responded back.

And so um I know that is something that's actually needed in my district.

How have you guys looked into that?

You know, those districts that have a high population of language barrier language access.

Absolutely.

I'll I'll make sure they do reach out to you.

I'm sorry about that.

Um our primary language access work has been internal to date.

We are slowly starting to do more community outreach.

We want to get the internal systems in place first and then slowly start to expand out.

And so we're just now getting to the point where we are reaching out into the communities, connecting with community groups to understand uh the complexity of the needs there, and so this is actually a perfect time to re-engage, and so I'll make sure Carla connects with you.

Okay, because I know that um I know there is, like I said, a language barrier group to me, IEPD in the Haitians.

Uh, actually it was a uh I think a shooting of some sort of that happened right there this past weekend.

Okay, um, and I just want to have to tap more into that, yeah.

Um, and then you know, so that we can make sure that we're you know, I'm servicing everybody, not just one set of my district, but everybody in that district, and I think this is an area of language access that would that would benefit, you know, out on the far east side.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

County Counselor Kill.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, thank you for your uh presentation.

Uh are you do you have any uh I I just looked, it was uh two months ago yesterday that uh the language access plan launched.

Uh so I know that's a limited amount of time, and I I know that it's primarily aimed for internal.

So if somebody tonight wanted to attend the committee meeting here and needed language access to publicly testify or something like that, that would be the type of of service.

How many requests I guess have you had so far?

Like what's what's the uptake, and if if it is low, what what steps can be taken to sort of it it's internally advertised.

So I don't um I don't have a clear answer on how many requests or how we're even quantifying requests.

What I do know is that uh Carla has been meeting with various internal stakeholder groups to really talk through the process and understand what's happening.

I can get you numbers on how many folks have requested translation or interpretation.

Um, for instance, I know that we we we track that.

Um so I can get you those numbers, but in terms of uh one-off requests um or even the total number of requests we received to date.

I don't have those numbers with me.

That's okay.

I just it would be interesting to see that as the program evolves, you know, particularly through its first year or two, three, to say what is how successful is it, and you know, do we need to get the word out uh more to counselor Allen's point?

Absolutely.

Um the other uh uh I guess comment more than a question, but uh in your community engagement and outreach, uh I I see lots of uh groups that that make a lot of sense.

Uh has there been uh any effort uh towards uh people with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities?

Uh they they typically I know Councillor Nielsen and I talk quite a bit about this uh and uh Councillor Barth as well, that the unemployment rate for that group in just broad general terms is sky high, and whether or not there are uh jobs that could be uh performed either directly for the city or through kind of vendor partners because one of the gaps that we're really struggling uh is the uh in the XBE vendor selection is the uh need for in order to be in that category, you have to be it has to be majority owned.

And that is oftentimes a barrier where you could you you might just want a job, but I don't know, let's say you wanted to you know provide janitorial services or something, but you have to be the owner of the company to get that XBE qualification for the the city to hire.

But is there a way we can kind of reach down and say, hey, here's here's a partnership?

Can you speak on that?

Yeah, I I love that idea.

Um I will say we've been trying to connect with the mayor's advocacy advocacy council on disabilities for the last couple years, and so we're working to re-engage with the MACD to understand the complexities of the needs um for folks with disabilities in Marion County and in the enterprise, and so we'll continue that work.

We are somewhat limited by our our staffing structure, you know, without adding more staff, it is hard to tackle an entire uh additional realm of equity and inclusion related issues.

Um but having said that we want to at least continue to explore and understand the need, and we have a a really strong relationship with the Office of Minority and Women Business Development, and so I can definitely speak with Director Fredericks and see how they've if they've encountered that problem and heard uh that before, and if not, what we can do to share resources and understand the scope of it and then find ways to remove those hurdles.

Okay, thank you.

And I I would encourage I I guess directly for me and I'll volunteer counselors Bartha Nielsen uh as well that uh feel free to reach out to the three of us uh because we have significant connections in that community that uh we could help make introductions and bridge that gap for say less.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, we are a journal.

Love it.