OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Administration and Finance Committee Budget Hearings – August 19, 2025

City-County Council — Tuesday, August 19, 2025
BodyIndianapolis, Indiana
SessionCity-County Council
DateTuesday, August 19, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:07:49

Transcript — Verbatim
0:03

Good evening.

0:04

Like to call the Admin and Finance Committee meeting to order.

0:08

We have four budget hearings up first is the Marion County election board.

0:14

You have the floor.

0:16

Now you do get four and a half minutes, okay?

0:20

If you take a couple minutes later, are we okay?

0:26

Yeah, we need to adjust.

0:28

Okay, we're good.

0:39

Ready?

0:41

Hello, everyone.

0:42

Good evening.

0:43

My name is Kate Sweeney Bell.

0:45

I'm the Marion County Clerk and Secretary of the Marion County Election Board.

0:51

And well, you you I'm not going to read these because I hate that.

0:56

But our board is bipartisan, and we are responsible for governing and administering all primary general and special elections in the county.

1:08

Thankfully, we do not have many special elections take place.

1:14

And another thing that we're responsible for, the election service center, 3737, East Washington.

1:22

Poll worker recruitment and training for each election.

1:25

There uh just as a reminder, two in 2026.

1:31

Creation of the vote center plan, and uh the execution of items in that plan, including uh in-person early voting, coordinating voting for military voters and overseas voters, and campaign finance compliance and enforcement.

1:48

Oh, next one our budget.

1:52

Uh I know you see a lot of these.

1:54

These are there are a lot of zeros here, and it's a lot of money.

1:58

We have been the recipient of uh robust and bipartisan support uh for years that set up our agency for success election after election after election.

2:13

Uh so I'm grateful to you for that, all of you on this committee, but also the Office of Finance and Management, who uh you know they get a lot of pushback from all of the different entities that they deal with.

2:27

So uh we do look forward to working with you on this process, and uh you can see that next year reflects uh year over year increase in the general fund budget request.

2:39

Since there was no election this year in 2025, uh the numbers will be less in most cases.

2:49

Character one uh we have full-time employees, uh, and we also have seasonal workers and poll workers.

3:02

So we distinguish seasonal workers from poll workers.

3:06

The poll workers are the ones when you go to vote, uh, who are checking you in.

3:10

Our seasonal workers help us coordinate everything that we have to do to get ready for an election and to complete an election.

3:21

It's uh a lot goes into it.

3:23

But uh the increases in character one are reflective of the higher salaries that uh this body as a whole voted for last year.

3:33

So from it our poll workers went from 11 to 15 dollars an hour.

3:40

Um, and if you wanted, I'd be happy to pay them more because they're worth it.

3:46

Um so that was ordinance 16 last year, and uh our clerks, which used to be the judge and the sheriff, but we just call them clerks now.

3:59

We do not differentiate.

4:00

Uh they are instead of 100 are now paid 180 dollars for 20 hours of work, and inspectors now make 240 dollars for their day of service, and uh many of them do give it back.

4:17

Our character two money, everything costs a little bit more, and uh we will be judicious in our use of paper products and pens, and you know, maybe we'll tape them to the desk, but uh those those costs have increased, so that's what that is.

4:32

Um for character three, other services and charges.

4:37

That's uh that's the bulk of our budget, and it again is a large increase for next year, but it's because there are elections next year.

4:50

We will have a new election service center next year.

4:54

Uh that's safe to say.

4:57

Yes.

5:00

There we we've had it, we've had a minor setback uh this week.

5:03

Um, but after 15 years at the current warehouse, we will be moving somewhere more modern.

5:11

Uh hopefully still centrally located, and uh, but it will have security features, and one of the recommendations that we have received is in our mail handling area uh to have a separate ventilation system, which is not something that a lot of us want to think about.

5:30

It's not because uh you know uh mail gets dragged through the dump before it comes to us, it's for uh safety reasons, and uh those are just some of the things that we have to think about in addition.

5:47

Um the rent will probably go up, and during election season, we have 24-hour armed security at our facility to not only protect the workers but also um the ballots, because they're you know worth their weight in gold as far as I'm concerned.

6:13

Uh there are increasing costs for vendor logistics, election day support, and project management.

6:19

So all of that goes up.

6:21

The uh contracts control our pricing when it comes when it comes to much of this.

6:28

On to character four.

6:30

I'm happy to report zeros across the board this year and next.

6:35

Uh special funding, those cumulative funds, uh, the the separate pools of money.

6:42

I am not an expert on how they work, but that is those are uh funds outside of the general fund.

6:49

And we have a lot of as you can imagine, there are a lot of projects that take place on years where we don't have elections where we have to uh go out for bid for this, that, and the other.

7:03

That's that's what this these dollars are for 2025 and next year.

7:10

As you can imagine, next our time is a little uh more constrained, so we can't work on so many RFPs when uh it's our job to count the ballots.

7:25

And the as in years past, you can see the budgeting for equity.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Election Procedures█████████████████████████████████████████████59%
Public Education████████11%
Engineering And Infrastructure████████10%
Personnel Matters█████6%
Budget████5%
Youth Programs██2%
Public Engagement██2%
Community Engagement██2%
Animal Care█1%
Summary of Proceedings

Administration and Finance Committee Budget Hearings – August 19, 2025

The Administration and Finance Committee of the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council met on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in Room 221 of the City-County Building to hold budget hearings for four agencies: the Marion County Election Board, Voter Registration, the Marion County Building Authority, and the Marion County Cooperative Extension Service. The committee heard presentations from agency officials and asked questions, but took no formal votes.

Marion County Election Board

  • Presented by Kate Sweeney Bell, Marion County Clerk and Secretary of the Election Board, who described the board's bipartisan oversight of all primary, general, and special elections.
  • The 2026 budget request is $7,115,806, a $1,651,358 increase from the 2025 adopted budget of $5,464,448. The increase is largely due to election-year costs, including poll worker pay raises (from $11 to $15 per hour for poll workers, $100 to $180 per day for clerks, and $240 per day for inspectors) authorized by Ordinance 16 in 2024.
  • Character 1 (Personal Services) increased by $1,278,490 to $2,451,147, reflecting higher salaries and seasonal worker needs. Character 2 (Supplies) increased by $11,930 to $42,440. Character 3 (Services) increased by $1,310,938 to $4,233,219, driven by a new election service center, security upgrades, and vendor logistics. Character 4 (Capital) remained at $0 from the general fund, with special funds from the Cumulative Capital Improvement Fund decreasing by $950,000 to $389,000.
  • Bell noted that the new election service center will replace the current warehouse after 15 years, with enhanced security features including a separate ventilation system for mail handling.
  • Councilors asked about mail-in voting security, early vote site expansion, poll worker recruitment, and residency requirements. Bell stated that the cost of early voting sites is not the barrier; logistics and bipartisan agreement on the vote center plan are key. The board has one full-time opening and expects another due to a relocation. Residency requirements for poll workers are statutory and cannot be changed locally.

Voter Registration

  • Presented by Alex Nirenda, Democratic Board Member, and Cindy Mowery, Republican Board Member, of the Marion County Board of Registration. The agency manages voter rolls, processes registrations, and certifies petitions.
  • The 2026 budget request is $1,351,591, a $63,392 increase from the 2025 adopted budget of $1,288,199. The increase is mainly in Character 1 (Personal Services) and Character 3 (Services). Character 2 (Supplies) decreased by $9,500 to $15,500 due to leaner operations.
  • As of August 13, 2025, there were 625,938 registered voters in Marion County, the largest in the state. In 2024, the agency processed over 137,000 registrations.
  • The agency is fully staffed with 12 positions, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats per statute. The office provides outreach through voter registration drives, using bipartisan teams, and offers Spanish-language forms. Online registration via IndianaVoters.gov is encouraged to reduce errors.
  • Councilor Boots asked about affirmative outreach to high schools. Nirenda noted security challenges but said they are developing relationships with teachers and staff. Councilor Allen asked about age data of registered voters; the agency does not have that report readily available.

Marion County Building Authority

  • Presented by Mark Peterson, General Manager, and President Verdix. The authority manages 23 properties with a total proposed budget of $36,172,591 for fiscal year 2026-2027.
  • Notable changes: The Office of Finance and Management (OFM) has taken back garage/parking lot operations. Three new properties are included: Belmont Solid Waste Garage (opening January 2026), Animal Care Facility (opening Q1 2026), and the Housing Hub. The Family Youth Intervention Center (formerly JJC Annex) is now operating 24/7, increasing its budget.
  • No major capital repair budget is included; OFM will provide $500,000 for capital projects in 2026. The authority reported spending $5,112,449 with XBE vendors (21.0% MBE, 9.5% WBE, 1.1% VBE), exceeding the city's goals. The voluntary turnover rate is 2.5%, with 7 open positions. Annual turnover decreased to 18.4% from 33.8% in 2023.
  • Councilor Mowery raised concerns about the temperature in meeting rooms, noting that the air conditioning often shuts down early. Peterson acknowledged the issue may be related to a climate control project and agreed to address it.

Marion County Cooperative Extension Service

  • Presented by Laura Dodds, County Extension Director, and Rita Blythe, Director of Operations. The agency delivers research-based educational programs through Purdue University in four core areas: Agriculture & Natural Resources, Health & Human Sciences, Community Development, and 4-H Youth Development.
  • The 2026 budget request is $969,694, a $47,527 increase from the 2025 adopted budget of $922,167. Character 1 (Personal Services) decreased by $13,598 due to staff retirement and changes in health insurance elections. Character 2 (Supplies) decreased by $730. Character 3 (Services & Charges) increased by $61,854, primarily due to a $48,313 increase in ISA chargebacks and a 3% increase in the Purdue Extension Educators contract.
  • The agency serves over 40,000 residents annually, with 78% of programs offered free. Grant revenue of $172,500 is expected for 2026, supporting 4-H, nutrition, mental health, and free tax preparation (VITA program). The VITA program is transitioning from the United Way of Central Indiana to the Extension Service.
  • Councilor Nelson, a VITA volunteer, praised the program and noted its importance for low-income residents.

Key Outcomes

  • No formal votes or decisions were taken during the hearing. The committee received the presentations and will consider the budgets as part of the overall 2026 budget process. The next steps involve further committee deliberations and potential amendments before full council consideration.

Meeting Transcript

Good evening. Like to call the Admin and Finance Committee meeting to order. We have four budget hearings up first is the Marion County election board. You have the floor. Now you do get four and a half minutes, okay? If you take a couple minutes later, are we okay? Yeah, we need to adjust. Okay, we're good. Ready? Hello, everyone. Good evening. My name is Kate Sweeney Bell. I'm the Marion County Clerk and Secretary of the Marion County Election Board. And well, you you I'm not going to read these because I hate that. But our board is bipartisan, and we are responsible for governing and administering all primary general and special elections in the county. Thankfully, we do not have many special elections take place. And another thing that we're responsible for, the election service center, 3737, East Washington. Poll worker recruitment and training for each election. There uh just as a reminder, two in 2026. Creation of the vote center plan, and uh the execution of items in that plan, including uh in-person early voting, coordinating voting for military voters and overseas voters, and campaign finance compliance and enforcement. Oh, next one our budget. Uh I know you see a lot of these. These are there are a lot of zeros here, and it's a lot of money. We have been the recipient of uh robust and bipartisan support uh for years that set up our agency for success election after election after election. Uh so I'm grateful to you for that, all of you on this committee, but also the Office of Finance and Management, who uh you know they get a lot of pushback from all of the different entities that they deal with. So uh we do look forward to working with you on this process, and uh you can see that next year reflects uh year over year increase in the general fund budget request. Since there was no election this year in 2025, uh the numbers will be less in most cases. Character one uh we have full-time employees, uh, and we also have seasonal workers and poll workers. So we distinguish seasonal workers from poll workers. The poll workers are the ones when you go to vote, uh, who are checking you in. Our seasonal workers help us coordinate everything that we have to do to get ready for an election and to complete an election. It's uh a lot goes into it. But uh the increases in character one are reflective of the higher salaries that uh this body as a whole voted for last year. So from it our poll workers went from 11 to 15 dollars an hour. Um, and if you wanted, I'd be happy to pay them more because they're worth it. Um so that was ordinance 16 last year, and uh our clerks, which used to be the judge and the sheriff, but we just call them clerks now. We do not differentiate. Uh they are instead of 100 are now paid 180 dollars for 20 hours of work, and inspectors now make 240 dollars for their day of service, and uh many of them do give it back. Our character two money, everything costs a little bit more, and uh we will be judicious in our use of paper products and pens, and you know, maybe we'll tape them to the desk, but uh those those costs have increased, so that's what that is. Um for character three, other services and charges. That's uh that's the bulk of our budget, and it again is a large increase for next year, but it's because there are elections next year. We will have a new election service center next year. Uh that's safe to say. Yes. There we we've had it, we've had a minor setback uh this week. Um, but after 15 years at the current warehouse, we will be moving somewhere more modern. Uh hopefully still centrally located, and uh, but it will have security features, and one of the recommendations that we have received is in our mail handling area uh to have a separate ventilation system, which is not something that a lot of us want to think about. It's not because uh you know uh mail gets dragged through the dump before it comes to us, it's for uh safety reasons, and uh those are just some of the things that we have to think about in addition. Um the rent will probably go up, and during election season, we have 24-hour armed security at our facility to not only protect the workers but also um the ballots, because they're you know worth their weight in gold as far as I'm concerned. Uh there are increasing costs for vendor logistics, election day support, and project management.

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