Good evening, everyone.

It is 5 30 p.m.

Welcome to the public safety committee of the city county council.

We're in the public assembly room of the city county building, and we will start our meeting this evening with introductions on our first role, Council Hart.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

My name is Michael Paul Hart, representing District 20.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Josh Bain, District 21.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman Paul Lenet, District 22.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Brian Mowery, District 25.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, Dan Boots, District 3, Northeast Side.

Thank you, Chairman Jessica McCormick, District 16, West Side.

Thank you, Chairman Brienne Delini, District 2.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Frank Mascarry, District 19, Southeast Side.

Thank you, Council.

We do have a guest member of the committee this evening, one of our counselors, Council Brown.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Council Jesse Brown, District 13, Dairy Standardside.

Thank you, Councillors.

We do have two presentations this evening regarding the 2026 budget of IFD and of IMPD.

Before that, we have a presentation on proposal 276-2025, which directs the Office of Public Safety, Health and Safety to provide a report.

City County Council regarding the appropriations of the round three elevation grant program to the Indianapolis Foundation.

Good evening, Mr.

Chairman, members of the committee.

This evening we're I'm joined by leadership from the Indianapolis Foundation, specifically Josette Robinson and Rachel McIntosh.

We're here to present to you information about the elevate historic elevation grant uh rounds as well as the future of the program.

As part of the proposal during the spring fiscal, uh which appropriated an additional two million dollars to the 2025 elevation grant program.

Uh we were we were asked to provide you all with an updated scope of work as well as a round three report.

Uh those are in your packets that you have in front of you.

This evening, Josette and Rachel will provide you with the more detailed um more detailed information about data, past um groups that have received this funding, but uh just at a high level, uh we are changing the uh program just a little bit to better fit the needs of the program and to better align with what we've of the feedback that we've received from you and from members of the community.

Um the new scope of work will move from a one-year grant cycle to a two-year grant cycle, combining funds from both 2025 and 2026.

Um we're doing that to ensure that grantees have enough time to implement their programs and that they can demonstrate efficacy.

Um we're also going to be focused on identifying grantees this year and getting them uh providing them with capacity building up front as well as identifying the outcomes that they're hoping to see through their programming so that they um they have everything that they need up front and can more effectively uh implement their programs.

And so uh with that, I will turn it over to Joe Sett to tell you more detail.

Thank you, Director Director.

Uh Ms.

Joseph, you want to sit there, you want to sit in your chair with you at the podium.

It's up to you.

Um the podium is fine, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you, Chairman Robinson, and esteemed city county counselors of the public safety and criminal justice committee.

I appreciate this opportunity to present to you this evening.

Tonight I'll discuss the 2025 through 2027 elevation grant program and the plan to deepen its impact on violence prevention while strengthening the capacity of nonprofit organizations and including grassroots.

In your packets, as Andrew mentioned earlier, you'll find uh the elevation grant program theory of change, um, a list of all elevation grantees from rounds one through six with total awards by organization, including a breakdown of those funded by the American Rescue Plan Act dollars versus the city only funds within the thriving neighborhoods category.

Also, you'll find the round three Thriving Neighborhoods report, which covers six funded grantees.

Next slide, please, thank you.

Okay, so the theory of change of the elevation grant program is rooted in the belief that by investing in grassroots organizations and community-led initiatives that address root causes of violent crime in Indianapolis, we can foster safer neighborhoods and empower residents.

This in turn promotes a more equitable and thriving community.

By supporting community-driven solutions, the program aims to dismantle systemic barriers, strengthen resilience within neighborhoods, and ultimately reduce crime while enhancing the overall quality of life.

Next slide, please.

This is uh just a reminder of the uh original city county council ordinance for the elevation grant program.

This ordinance establishes clear equity-focused guardrails for a transparent grant making program tied directly to violence reduction.

It authorizes annual grants to Marion County nonprofits for programs that reduce violent crime, support youth prevention and mentoring, and address trauma.

The Indianapolis Foundation administers the program, guidelines, applications, and evaluation criteria are set forth by the city and TIFF jointly or the Indianapolis Foundation jointly with violent crime defined to include major gun-related and other serious offenses.

Final awards are approved by the Indianapolis Foundation's board of directors with priority given to evidence-based outreach case management and job readiness and retention program.

We're favoring organizations that are ready to launch immediately, but will provide capacity building support to those that aren't in need of that.

And the ordinance requires annual reporting to the city council and detailed report to the designated committee.

Next slide, please.

We will continue to maintain the structure of the five distinct priority areas being thriving neighborhoods, empowered youth and young adults, restoration and resilience, intervention, and justice involved supports.

And to address the increase in the prevalence of youth violence, we'll dedicate a minimum of 1 million dollars of funding to empowered youth and young adults category while centering equity, cultural responsiveness, and data important practices across all awards.

Again, in your handout, you'll have the list of all the elevation grantees across rounds one through six, but I wanted to pull that data out for you.

The elevation grant program supported 46 grantees across six rounds in thriving neighborhoods for a total of six million two hundred twenty-three thousand six hundred and fifty-seven dollars in city funds.

This group of grantees received thousands of hours of targeted technical assistance and infrastructure development support and provided a variety of services from community outreach to block parties and pro-social peer activities, leading to short-term outcomes like building social capital and long-term outcomes like increasing civic engagement.

Of the 40.4 million dollars awarded in total across six rounds of the elevation grant program, again, 6.2 million was awarded from city dollars to thriving neighborhood grantees.

Additionally, 77% of all funds supported grassroots organizations with an annual operating org budget of 750,000 or less.

So we were very intentional about supporting grassroots organizations with the elevation grant program in addition to larger organizations.

This chart displays elevation funding by round from July of 2022 through September 30th of 2025.

That's when the grant program will end.

The Navy blue bars indicate ARPA funding, and the turquoise bars indicate city funding.

Round three was dedicated exclusively exclusively to thriving neighborhoods.

That's why you only see turquoise in that third round, awarding again $800,000 across six organizations.

And now we'll look at some of the data trends across rounds one through six.

So elevation funding is reaching neighborhoods with the greatest need.

Among grantees tracking violence reduction, 65.8 of the 62,731 people served lived in the highest violence zip codes 46208, 46218, 4626, 46201, and 46235.

For city-funded thriving neighborhood grantees, that concentration was even higher at 78.2% of the 32,843 served.

Programs focused on adult arrest and recidivism showed encouraging results of 73.6 of the 13,634 participants that had no arrests during the grant period.

For context, the national three-year average for recidivism is 40 to 45 percent, and Indiana's three-year recidivism rate for the 2020 cohort was 34.78 percent.

So we are well below that.

For youth outcomes, we see across grantees measuring youth arrest and recidivism, only 7% of the 4,717 youth had a juvenile court case filed during the grant period.

And among thriving neighborhoods, grantees using the same measure, the figure drops to 4%.

As we look at youth protective factors in school climate, we say that across all rounds, among grantees tracking youth skills and development attitudes, 81.5% of the 14,470 youth showed skills gain within the thriving neighborhoods cohort that raises to 95.1%.

For grantees tracking youth suspension and expulsions, 87.1% had no suspension for violent behavior during the grant period.

Additionally, grantees report that the elevation grant program is contributing to reductions in homicide and recidivism.

This is more information about the data trends.

So since the inception of the ARPA dollars into the elevation grant program and prior two, we have seen a decline in both nonfatal shootings and homicides, especially during the six rounds of the elevation grant program from January of I'm sorry, July of 22 through June of 25.

The number of murders has declined 55%, and non-fatal shootings drop by 44%.

Just this year at the halfway mark, there was a 30% year to date reduction in murders and a 20% decrease in nonfatal shootings.

While these trends are encouraging, they are correlational and correlation does not equal causation.

Outcomes are shaped by multiple influences, including but not limited to these heroes in the room with me today.

Also other programs and community conditions.

So we cannot attribute causation only to the elevation grant program.

As we look at capacity building across rounds one through six, there were a variety of supports offered to all the organizations that participated in the elevation grant program as well as other community organizations to prepare them to be competitive in future rounds of elevation.

Offering robust capacity building support to grantees has been a game changer.

We have seen more grassroots organizations grow in scale, leveraging elevation dollars and skills developed through TA support to become more competitive for funding and go after and receive additional support from other funding sources.

Next slide, please.

Looking at the lessons learned across the six rounds, we know that effective crime prevention through grant programs requires robust infrastructure development, including adequate time for technical assistance, data collection preparation, and fiscal sponsorship grounded in trust and clear communication.

Small grassroots organizations face capacity and staffing challenges, emphasizing the need for financial compliance, support, and tailored capacity building strategies.

Collaborative approaches with key stakeholders such as IPSF, IMPD, and the city are essential.

Alongside sufficient evaluation periods between grant cycles, frequent site visits, and a multi-year funding strategy are critical to achieving sustainable outcomes and reducing violent crime effectively.

So, in conclusion, we've seen some positive short-term outcomes in that grantees have reported improvements in protective factors and the strengthening of social networks among participants.

There was a noticeable reduction in murders and non-fatal shootings in Marion County each year the elevation program was in effect, and additionally, recidivism rates have gone down and are lower than the statewide IDLC three-year recidivism rate.

Again, while these trends are promising, it's important that we recognize correlation does not imply causation and multiple factors, including public policy and social conditions, have contributed to the decreases.

The elevation grant program has demonstrated the potential for significant positive impact when community-driven solutions are supported through resources and collaboration.

We are eager to continue working with the city county council to build on these achievements and foster safe and more resilient thriving communities.

Looking at the growth and building on the lessons learned and working with the city, we are making additional changes to optimize the outcome of the elevation grant program.

For the first time, we are piloting elevation as a multi-year grant program, providing funding over two years to up to 35 organizations and serving central Indiana residents.

We have an orientation and preparation phase before the grant period begins that will pair grantees with elevation staff, consultants, and evaluators to customize metrics and develop a solid work plan.

In this iteration, the Indianapolis Foundation will pilot and manage again a two-year elevation grant funding cycle, funding up to 35 organizations.

We will not allow fiscal sponsorship this time around because we ran into a lot of issues with that, and until we're able to find a better process that works both for the fiscal sponsors and sub-sub grantees, we will encourage collaboration amongst organizations in lieu of fiscal sponsorship.

We will continue to prioritize grassroots and community-based organizations while considering other highly competitive applicants.

Engagement will increase through more frequent touch points among grantees, the foundation and consultants, with each grantee co-developing customized work plans and specific program management measures.

We will provide regular updates to the city and include representatives from both OPHS and the city county council staff in the application review process as well as sites visits if they so choose to participate.

Next slide, please.

The timeline for the elevation grant program has been broken down into four phases.

Phase one is preparation and application.

That's the phase we are currently in.

During this phase, we are contracting with TA partners and evaluation partners, hiring additional elevation staff, launching the application and RFP, and hosting information sessions as well as grant writing clinics.

The first information session will be tomorrow at Martin University at 10 a.m.

and with the evening option at 6 p.m.

Phase two includes the review and selection process where we will conduct reviews of the applications to conduct interviews for finalists, have site visits with grantees, and complete orientation with grantees.

We'll have a ramp up time where we'll finalize grantee work plans, reporting and evaluation plans, and hold if necessary a nonprofit job there and coordinate with Indy public safety partners as necessary.

Phase three is capacity building and TA support.

This will be ongoing throughout the grant period, but there'll be uh technical assistance and tailored capacity building support uh for each grantee throughout the grant period.

Um, additionally, we'll complete administrative onboarding agreements and documentation and hold a data deep dive with grantees and the list initial payments.

Finally, in phase four, the grant period will begin implementation and continue monitoring, monitoring, reporting, convening, collaborating, coaching throughout the term.

And now I'll open it up for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Ms.

Robinson and uh Director Merkley.

Comments and question counselors on the presentation, Counselor Boots.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chairman, and thank you, Ms.

Robinson, for the presentation.

Um thing in the past that we've struggled with is what metrics are being used to measure the effectiveness and efficacy of the millions of dollars we're spending in this area.

And my understanding was we were by now to have a report on the prior, particularly the ARPA money that we spent.

Is that in my misunderstanding where we stand on that?

No, you're you're not misunderstanding.

So we have provided for every round one through five is uh in the works right now.

We provided a report.

Actually, CRISP is an outside evaluator, and they have completed a report for the ARPA dollars for each round of elevation.

Um rounds one through four have already been completed and submitted to OPHS.

They're currently working on round five and will continue through round six.

And have the the resulting information been provided to our council?

Um I'm not sure.

They're contracted not through the Indianapolis Foundation but through the Office of Public Health and Safety to provide that information.

Okay.

Um provided uh BOP reached out to the foundation and requested uh copies of some of the reports, so I was able to provide those, but we'd be happy to share them uh with permission from the city.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Additional comments, thank you, Council.

Mr.

Commons, Council Delaney.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I have a question, and I'm not sure if it's for your director Mercury.

Um as the ARPA funding winds down, I'll say, where and I you had a great picture of this chart here, like a pie chart in the graph with dark blue and light blue showing the breakdown, and it's like nine tenths, seven eighths uh ARPA funding.

What does that break down look like for 2026, 2027?

And then I noticed you said these panel reports are gonna come in 2028.

So are we still lots of ARPA funding for the next two years, and then after that we fall off.

I don't know if you could kind of walk me through the the scale of where we're at for next year for 2026, 2027, and 2028.

That's a great question.

So uh right now we are in the round six that closes out on September 30th.

That is the end of the ARPA dollars.

There are no more ARPA dollars to award.

So from 2025, because we'll be making an award at the end of the year through 2027, that's our two year window.

It will be city dollars only.

The total amount is $7 million.

That includes admin fees.

And again, we'll be making 35 awards to uh grantee organizations in addition to capacity building awards to support those organizations and other applicants.

The award range will be from 100,000 over two years to 400,000 over two years.

And the 7 million you said is is city funding.

Yes, uh from that point, so from September 30th, there are no more ARPA dollars.

It's all city funding.

So round six, to be I'm just repeating, is all city funding.

No, no, no, no, no, it's looking at that.

So round six is so elevation with ARPA dollars was rounds one through six.

Round six is concluding September 30th, and then we're not calling the next iteration round seven, we're just calling it elevation 2025 through 2027, and that will be city dollars only.

You're very welcome.

Thank you, Councilor, you good?

Thank you.

Councilor Hart.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh I guess what I'm trying to derive from from this is you know, and I appreciate Councilor Boots' question there too.

And I see some macro data in here in terms of you know overall dollars spent um and some of your buckets in terms of how grants and recidivism rates and things of that nature.

You know, one of the things that I've been trying to really understand going back to ARPA when we let these dollars go out, and this was the all organizations, but it was an understand the efficacy of each program.

And that was the purpose of really trying to understand this too.

Is you you've come in and you've had a lot of examples right here.

I mean, there's probably hundreds of organizations on this piece of paper that show you've given or we've given taxpayers have given mil 40 million dollars.

But what worked?

You know, because what here's here's what goes through my my mind what I'm sitting here and probably a lot of all our other minds is we have this money come in, we're still being will be requested for money in the future.

You know, we get requested from some of these departments that are here today, whether it be um transitional housing funds or license point reader funds or case management systems uh between organizations, and we have to make the decision should it go there to those things that they're requesting because they're not getting any of those things I just mentioned, or should it go to these future programs?

Um and that's that's the the basis of what I've been trying to understand is I see these macro numbers, but what programs who what organizations are we going to be funding in future rounds?

Is that something that can be answered today?

Well, I don't have the list of organizations in front of me that will be funded in future rounds because it they have to apply and go through the process.

There's no guaranteed future funding.

Um, but we are looking at past performance of elevation grantees, and those that did not perform well will be encouraged not to apply, or we will highlight the areas in which they need to improve as we're making those considerations, right?

Um so we will be taking that performance into consideration.

What I will say is is working is that we have seen a reduction in crime, and again, I don't stand before you taking credit for that, or you know, suggesting that the elevation grant program solely contributed to that.

I think we were uh a factor in that uh decrease in crime uh in violent crime.

Um also we've again seen growth and stability of nonprofit organizations.

Um I think there are several things that are working with the elevation grant program, lots of areas for improvement, but I do think that we are trending in the right direction.

Where is the past performance per organization data?

We have it.

Is that something that the council has or OPHS has?

Um, but we can we can happily share that.

Yeah, that that's the type of information we want to look at so when we know going forward that we're we're funding organizations that are doing good work.

Absolutely.

And we again knew to elevation this year, we will have uh city county council staff member participate in that review process, and of course they'll have access to that as well as a staff member from OPHS.

Okay, thank you, ma'am.

Very welcome.

Thank you, also Council Brown.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh once again a question that I'm not sure is for you, Ms.

Robinson or for Mr.

Merkley or both.

Uh you may have heard on Monday's council meeting and kind of consistently throughout this budget process.

We've been talking about youth violence and how we can best address that.

And my constituents keep bringing up Baltimore as a comparison city.

So I don't know if it's Baltimore specific or just generally cities our size.

How does the Lation Grant program compare to what other cities are doing?

Are they similarly finding nonprofits to fund?

Um, especially as these ARPA dollars are going away.

Are we funding higher less, you know, how does it compare to peer cities?

And if you don't have that right on the top of your head, that's totally fine.

Well, actually, the Indianapolis Foundation is part of a cohort called Community Foundation Leeds or CF Leeds, and there is a gun violence prevention network that is national across the United States, and we're a part of that uh cohort.

And what we do is meet with other organizations like that one in Baltimore, um, like the one in uh Milwaukee, and we work together.

Um there is a convening on September the 22nd in Milwaukee to um unveil like a guidebook to help other cities to engage in the work deeper.

Um I've been in communication with uh Andrew uh and OPHS to try to get us to be more engaged in that cohort, and he assures me that that's something that we want to continue to do, like look into the future.

Um but comparatively that that's our ultimate goal.

Um we have a team, uh a small team of us, uh Kendell Adams, I'm gonna call you out as part of that team, as well as um Dane Nutty from the Indy Public Safety Foundation, uh Beatrice Beverly as a community leader, um, and a nonprofit um CEO, and then the community foundation itself.

So we are working together to uh create and develop a blueprint for peace in Indianapolis that will be comparative to what's going on in Baltimore.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Counselor Renee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you for being here.

I I as well don't know exactly who my questions would be best directed at, and I have just a few, so uh whoever is the best suited uh please feel free to take a crack at it.

Um I I looking back at Councilor Hart's comments, you know, if there is in fact some measurable way that uh you determine whether an organization that has been awarded grant dollars has uh succeeded or or failed in in some way, it'd be interesting to me to get a breakdown uh of that.

So if we've spent 40.4 million dollars up to this point, American Rescue Plan funding and some other funding, it'd be nice to better understand what percentage of that funding was deemed uh success and what what percent would be deemed maybe not a success uh in those standards uh to help us better understand how we can be confident as we operationalize these dollars into our general um into our budget.

Counselor thanks thanks for the question.

Um, can answer more about the his the historic use of those ARPA funds and whether or not we have the data to back that up.

I think what's important here is in this next round of funding is that we're taking we're pausing and we are identifying up front what the outcomes are for what the outcomes need to look like for each of the grantees we select and identifying the the data, the metrics that need to be collected in order to prove that they are that those outcomes have been met.

And so I I I don't know because I haven't seen the data from previous rounds, but that is the goal here is to make sure that the that we can demonstrate outcomes through the data, and we're gonna do that up front with an evaluator, uh which we did not do in previous rounds.

So we had an evaluator come in on the back end, they weren't able to assist the grantees, and we're also going to make sure that the grantees have the right systems in place to collect the data so that we can best analyze it.

We also didn't have that in the past.

So I think, you know, just again, Josette can answer the questions about the historic data, but as we move forward, we have a plan in place in order to answer your questions.

And I would just say, and I do have a few additional uh points to make, but it's a little bit disturbing that 40.4 million dollars later, and and we say, well, we gotta look forward.

Well, you have to know where you have been to know where you're going.

And that's gonna tell us in many ways where we've been.

And if we don't know that, there's a significant flaw that exists, and we deserve to know as the fiscal body what that flaw is, because now it's not just ARPA money, it's our city money, and we need to be very cognizant of how effective or ineffective it has been up to this point, from my perspective.

Um, in terms of a process, and and I generally understand this, but for those perhaps watching at home on this uh Wednesday evening, um, so the city the city has the money, okay, and then we've awarded the organization to disperse the money on behalf of the city.

Is that is that correct, generally?

That's correct.

And so as the Indianapolis Foundation goes through the grant process, what direct role does the city also play in conjunction with the Indianapolis Foundation and guiding that along?

Because it's our money being administered, obviously, from a reputable foundation for certainly.

But what what do we have to ensure that that is moving along from our perspective?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, that was one key piece that we have implemented moving forward.

So OPHS will have uh a dedicated staffer assigned working on this program overseeing it with in in conjunction with the Indianapolis Foundation, and that's our um uh chief violence prevention officer, Ralph Durrett.

So he'll be overseeing that.

He'll also serve on the selection committee.

The uh the council will also be have a staffer sitting on the selection committee.

So the city will have uh in the future uh round of this funding, they will have uh representation on that selection committee.

We've also been very involved in creating um and and uh creating this this changed program and working with the foundation to um to get us ready for that capacity building up front, that evaluator up front, so that we can answer all the questions that you've had today.

When we think about the amount of dollars that we invest in this grant program, what percentage of those dollars go towards administrative costs and and in other words, how much actually goes to grassroots organization, which would be a follow-up question is what do we identify?

How do we describe the definition of a grassroots organization?

But how much actually goes to the grassroots organizations and how much is an administrative costs and and outside council or what whatnot?

Yeah, so in the scope of work you should have the budget there that outlines exactly um I believe it's it's 15 percent is the admin fee to the Indianapolis Foundation.

Um just that can speak to to other pieces of that budget.

Yes, um, as privately previously stated on the slide with the pie graph, 77 percent of grant funds supported grassroots organizations.

Um and that was of the 40.4 million dollars awarded.

So when we look at the $7 million uh proposed or the program budget, and it it totals the seven million, we've got is that this this correct?

I would looking ahead and iteration, yes.

I was just curious.

So we have 650,000 in contracted service providers, 150,000 in contract service providers, and then uh a million fifty thousand in administrative fee.

So is it fair to say about 1.85 of the seven is going towards 15 percent.

15 percent.

Okay.

Um I think that's something to consider.

Um when we talk about correlation does not equal causation.

I would just reiterate that I agree, and I think that we still don't have data from previous rounds to be able to look towards the future or anything really of substantive uh quality that would give me any real confidence in the program.

And I want to have confidence in it.

I'm not uh objectively against the concept of giving money to grassroots organizations.

I am a little bit insulted and have been over the last several years, that it just doesn't seem that we have any real data, and we continue to ask for it.

So I hope that some of the new changes that are being adopted do in fact provide um that long um awaited um set of data points.

Thank you.

Counselor Books.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and not to be the dead horse, but just I want to emphasize this the issue of needing metrics and measuring efficacy and effectiveness is not just a political issue.

It's not just coming from the Republicans.

We have been drunk on federal money these last few years, and and the hangover is gonna hit us in the next year or two.

So we need to know every dollar that is spent is effective and efficient and going in the right place.

We don't know that, and we just spent 45 million dollars, and we cannot explain to the public where all this money has been.

And when I look at some of these, with all due respect, I look at some of these programs, we got a uh a city of 900,000 people, and we got a program that serves 80 people.

Is that efficient?

Is that money well spent?

It might be, but we have no idea.

So that's the drive behind us as a fiscal body to make sure because we think this budget is tight.

Next year is going to be worse, next year after that, probably worse.

So we need to do our homework now and get that data set up so that we can really be effective because I see troubled waters ahead, and we need to start having a cleaner house.

Thank you.

I I was gonna um insert here again on rounds one to six.

The city is the one that's holding that contract.

So we have that data contract.

The program's not over.

So the CRISP is the research center at IU that's conducting that.

So that is underway.

In prior years to that, the Indianapolis Foundation did hold the third party evaluator.

We did not under these rounds.

So that data is coming and available, and then for this upcoming round, we will be holding that contract again.

We will all be working on the data and the metrics from the jump.

So just want to be clear there is data.

Um it is forthcoming, and that was a choice to go with the with Chris independently for that.

Rachel McIntosh.

All right.

And I appreciate that, and I also appreciate your recognition that correlation is not causation.

We've seen statistics going down nationwide.

It's a it's a societal trend.

It's not necessarily due to the effectiveness of what we're doing here in Indianapolis.

So that just enhances and makes it more important that we study what we're doing and make sure our dollars are going to the most direct impact, and we're not just throwing money at something that is naturally getting better now that we're post-COVID.

So thank you, sir.

Thank you, Council.

Councilor Bain.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you for the presentation.

Quick question for Director Merkley.

Um I certainly respect the Indianapolis Foundation and the work that they do.

Is it possible that this would almost be more efficient if it was kept in-house and we didn't have a 15 percent admin fee, and that is just additional dollars that could be passed on to grassroots organizations that are doing great work.

Yeah, the Indianapolis Foundation has been a great partner.

Um and it is an ordinance that the funding goes through the Indianapolis Foundation for these this grant.

Um you should have the ordinance in front of you.

I'm happy to have conversations about whatever this body would like, however, you would like to have that funding uh operated in the future.

Okay.

Yeah, I think that's certainly something for us to look at.

And you know, if it's in ordinance, that means it can be taken out of ordinance.

Um that's a pretty simple thing that this body can do.

And again, that that's not to be negative towards the Indianapolis Foundation at all.

It's just when we continue to talk about tight budgets, it's important that we're um being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars that we're blessed to have.

And I guess we'll just wrap up with a quick comment.

I think Chairman Boots hit the nail on the head when he said we're seeing crime going down across the country, which is a great thing.

It's a blessing.

Um, but when you look at how Indianapolis compares to our pure cities, we are right on par.

So if every other city is doing this, all our pure cities are doing this, and we can all point to that and say this is why it's going down, then you know that that could be a wise investment for us to continue, uh, given that we do not have that data and we can't point to it.

It's very difficult for uh I think to come back to the council and ask us to continue funding this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Bain.

Counselor Perkins.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and I do apologize for being late this evening.

Uh I have a couple of questions.

Um I think uh since we've been since I've been in this council, we've been talking about this causation and correlation.

Um, and so like correlation is significant, right?

Um it's not accidental.

Um, it is not only because it's happening nationally, that means we're seeing a decrease here in Indianapolis.

We are doing some things right.

Um, and we are investing uh in organizations that are addressing root causes of violence and insecurity for many of our families.

So I I want us to to be able to think about that, because we oftentimes will uh join in a unison and support the response to crime, and not so much when it comes on to addressing the root causes of some of the issues that we face in our society.

So I do want to name that.

There are a number of organizations that are listed here that are doing tremendous work.

This council has just not been given that data.

And this is a second year that we're going through a budget process, that I'm going through a budget process, that we ask in the same question.

If there is an outside agency that's been contracted to do the evaluation of these organizations and their impact in community, we need to know that.

It's one thing to say that data exists.

We just we haven't seen it.

And so we need to be able to see that.

Um and so because at least some of us who are advocating for increased funding to address root causes at a place where we are in this limbo that we are advocating for something, but we're not seeing the impact data that you have.

And we and and I know that the you say that you have the data provided to us.

So whether that be from OPHS or from IF, whoever has it needs to be needs to present that to the council.

And we should not wait until a year from today when we're going through a third round of of uh budget hearing.

Um that's my statement.

Uh uh, you made a um a point earlier to saying that 777% uh of the funds are going direct to directly towards organizations that that leaves about 23 percent of the funds.

Where are we doing with what are we doing with those the 23 percent?

The other 23 percent?

Yes.

Are going to organizations that are not 750 dollars or below with their annual operating org budgets.

So for the operating costs for IF is about 10 percent, 10 10 or 13 percent.

15 for the for the future round.

For the future round.

Yes.

Okay.

And so the remainder of of that percentage is going towards organizations with lower than no higher than 750,000.

Higher than 750.

So, for instance, um, we we fund some of the HFIP programs at the hospital, the violence intervention programs at the hospital.

That will be an example of an organization that is not grassroots, that is not below that 750,000 dollar threshold.

Okay.

Um one particular organization that's listed on here that's a part of uh my community uh is the GLIC neighborhood center.

Yes.

Talk to us about what's going on.

Um the Fabicard Glick Neighborhood Center was awarded um elevation funding as a fiscal sponsor to support two entities, true colors and CRT.

CRT um works in conjunction with um IMPD and um community organizations, and then True Colors is like a youth development organization working with justice impacted youth.

Um each of those organizations had a relationship with Fabricar Glick Neighborhood Center, and the center failed those organizations.

Um I'm torn.

I I I want to stand before you and be transparent and honest.

Um that's all I know how to do, so that's what I'll continue to do.

Uh, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say, what I'm not allowed to say.

So I'll just state my truth and and let it rest there.

Um these organizations the executive director is coming to rescue you a bit there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Ahmed Young.

I serve as the president and CEO of the Indianapolis Foundation.

I've been in the role for approximately six and a half days.

Um at my first board meeting yesterday, and I am honored to say that uh Josette, uh Rachel, and the rest of the team take this uh partnership and collaboration uh with the City of Indianapolis with the City County Council very seriously.

Uh this is uh a labor of love for many of our team members, and that labor of love deserves to be shown and told on a consistent basis, and it's incumbent upon us in this partnership to tell that story.

Counselor Perkins, to your question regarding Fabricard Glick, uh it's uh it's a disappointing situation, and we are making sure that those two entities, true colors and CRT are made whole and able to execute their mission, and there's a group of not only funders, but other thought leaders and community leaders addressing this situation for the short term and the long term.

Uh thank you.

Uh let me thank you.

And you good job, seventh day on the job.

Um, I I I do want to I do want to say thank you to the Indianapolis Foundation uh because you have stepped up in a big way to address this particular issue to make right note not only to those organizations, but to also make right to the community.

I know that you guys have been working over time to address the issues, I've been in contact, we've been in communication, and so I want to extend uh my gratitude as a counselor to to the work that you've been doing to make this whole.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councillor.

Council Delaney.

Thank you.

Um this is directed towards Director Merkley.

Um when we were going through your confirmation hearings, you talked about a new data position that you um were in how you were restructuring the organization.

Um could you talk a little bit about that position and and what they're going to be doing?

Because I know it's not just the elevation grants that, although that's the topic tonight, your agency has a lot more money that is spent on community involvement and community organizations.

If you could just quickly give us a a snippet of what else your organization is doing with that new position.

So our data manager is focused on uh data management of the programs that OPHS directly operates.

So when you think about the fellowship program, um eviction prevention responses, uh food access response, that's what they're focused on.

Now we are uh that individual has also helped us uh as we're working through this this new process with the Indianapolis Foundation to make sure that the same data that that we are requiring of our grantees is included in the contract with the Indianapolis Foundation so that it goes so that it then gets to the subgrantees.

So can you say there's going to be continuity between the two data sets?

Is that what you're trying to say?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

This with comments.

Counselor.

I was uh given the opportunity to speak, so I will keep this uh moment limited, but um it was referenced, I think, um when Councilor Boots uh made a few points about data um after I spoke.

Um and there was uh somebody came up and said that there would be a forthcoming study.

Um I think it might have been you and I apologize and missed your name.

Um I was just curious how forthcoming do we anticipate that?

Well, the the program is wrapping up this month.

So typically that would take a few months to go through the draft to go through the data.

Um we also have to wait for everybody to close out their books.

So typically that's usually about three to four months before a final study would be.

Um in government in general, uh, but it would be nice to find a way that uh these type of grant processes could be conducted and uh review and analysis uh could be captured uh in preparation for our budget.

I mean it'd be nice to be able to have the information in front of us either at a meeting like tonight or at a meeting at review and analysis, uh, so we have some extra confidence that we don't find out three or four later, uh three or four months later that maybe we regretted or or um felt differently uh than we voted uh during the final passage of the budget.

Would it be helpful if we made sure that you you all had all of the program reports that have already been created from previous rounds, and then as soon as we have this final round um completed, we'll get that to you.

I think what would be helpful, and uh I I don't think I'm allowed to ask for a guest to come to the public safety committee, so I'll have to kick that to Chairman Robinson.

But I think it would be helpful it as Councillor Boots said, this is not a partisan issue.

It really is not.

Uh it could turn into one, but currently it's not.

And so we're all asking for data, seemingly all of the members of this committee to a great extent.

So it would be helpful to have you come with the data to a committee meeting and actually dive into it.

And I can't speak to whether that's possible or when that might be, but to me that would be the most appropriate thing is to give it to us prior to a committee hearing and make a presentation so we can really have a dialogue on it as a committee.

Thank you, counselor.

Final comments from counselors.

Anyone in the audience could speak to the presentation from uh the Naples Foundation.

No one, thank you, counselors.

Uh, there's no vote.

Thank you, Ms.

Robinson, Director Merkley, and uh Presidency Yield, uh Mr.

Young, thank you as well.

There's no vote on this presentation.

The 2026 budget presentation this evening, we'll have two of them.

Uh first up is the Indianapolis Fire Department, uh Chief Ernest Malone.

Chief, you all do have a hard copy of the presentation in your packet.

And Chief, we'll take the questions from a committee members in the audience after your presentation.

Thank you.

Chief, you can get started.

We have a hard copy.

Yeah, you can still have a hard copy.

Thank you.

All right, good evening, Mr.

Chairman and other counselors.

Thank you again for a opportunity to talk to you about your fire department.

We're uh excited to uh talk to you about our twenty twenty-six uh budget proposal.

Um I do want to just uh recognize some of the folks uh we have uh with us uh this evening behind me.

Uh we have uh our exceptional CFO Don Sykes Randall beside me.

Uh she'll take you through the numbers.

We have Assistant Chief Mike White, uh Deputy Chief Mike Beard, Deputy Chief Matt Hince, Deputy Chief Mike Tiernan.

We have a lot of mics.

Um Tony Jones is our division chief of personnel, division chief of EMS uh Brendan Hartnett, our director of media relations, uh Chief Rita Wright, our Indiana Task Force One Commander Tom Neal, we have Captain Carla Isaacs, and we have our program manager Sarah Kobzev.

And last but not least, we are always proud um for the support and attendance of our partners in labor at local four sixteen, and we have President uh Shannon Whitley here with us this evening.

So with that, um, at your pleasure, we'll go ahead and move through the slides, sir.

Um briefly over the uh agency overview and my introductions, uh, I mentioned the deputy chief.

We're basically divided into four uh major bureaus, that's administration, logistics, community risk reduction, and operations.

A little bit about our staffing.

Uh I did supply, we have an organizational chart and our three-year staffing analysis in the appendix.

Um, full staffing is thirteen hundred and twenty-four people.

That's broken down the twelve hundred and seventy-six firefighters and forty-eight um critical civilians uh that we are lucky to have.

Uh admin staff, I talk to you about it each year, ninety-four percent, a little over 94% of our firefighters are at neighborhood stations responding to run.

So uh with comparable cities, we have a very small administrative staff.

We primarily cover two hundred and eighty-five square miles.

Uh obviously we have mutual aid and automatic aid throughout uh the entire four hundred square miles of Marion County.

Um, but if you call IFD, we're going to respond wherever we need it, wherever we're needed.

We we've responded all over the state of Indiana and certainly with the task force uh beyond the boundaries of of Indiana.

We have eighty-eight frontline uh apparatus, those are the apparatus that are staffed and on duty right now as we speak.

Um, but we have dozens of others that the firefighters that are on those engines, ladders, and rescue squads, if a certain type of incident comes in, they transition to that tactical hazardous materials, confined space, rope rescue dive, whatever it may be, um, and respond on that vehicle and um work to mitigate that incident.

A lot of the information I'm talking about, I hope that the thumb drives that we supply to you earlier in the year are helpful.

We intend to update those annually.

But if there's ever any information that you don't find there, you know, just pick up the phone and we'll we'll get you the answer.

Some of the direction initially asked for demographics is always something we spend a little bit of time on.

This is as of today, and you can see the breakdown of those 1,276 sworn members.

We're at 26 1264.

Just some interesting information.

The average age of our members is 44, and the average seniority or years of service is 15 years.

There's other information there.

If as we go through at the end, as the chairman instructed, we're certainly can walk through any other demographic information.

Our hiring and retention, just a couple uh pieces here.

We're excited to announce that uh beginning October 16th, we will begin taking applications for uh our 2027 uh recruit class.

I know that seems uh pretty far out.

We'll have another class we'll talk some about this evening uh that'll start on January 5th, 2026.

But uh this process will be for the class that will start in January of 2027.

We anticipate it running from mid-October uh to mid-December.

Uh we're very fortunate we have a pretty robust application.

Uh we'll we'll have somewhere 1300 to 1400 applicants for 130 positions.

So uh we're we're lucky that we can be pretty selective there.

Uh with that process, we have a CPAT, that's the candidate physical ability test.

It's like an obstacle course, it's used all over the country by fire departments.

Uh we have practice sessions to help our candidates prepare for the interviews and additional information sessions.

Our approach here is that we we really want to meet people where they are, not where we think they should be.

We're going to recruit everyone and work with everyone.

We won't lower any standards, but we want to attract uh the wide variety of people from our community and let them have an opportunity to become Indianapolis firefighters.

We have ongoing EMS firefighting and special operations training.

Um I talk to you often about our career development program.

We're really proud of that.

Uh the rec when a person joins our organization and is sitting in recruit class, if they have an idea that they want to be a chief officer in this organization, from the time they start recruit class, this manual is available to them, and they can look at every requirement they have to meet to reach that goal.

So it's laid out for them.

We're not moving the finish line on people.

We lay it out for you.

You have to put in the work, but the information is there.

Another uh excellent program in my view is the College Bridge.

We have agreements with both brick and mortar and online institutions.

I think it's about a dozen now that we've negotiated uh articulation agreements where they will give a certain amount of credit to our members based on the training they have uh gone through with IFD.

This is certainly helps our promotion candidates, but the idea was not just about promotion candidates.

What I a group I wanted to touch are those folks who never went to college or didn't finish college, uh, and they just seem like it's too daunting a task.

Well, most of these uh institutions are getting people about halfway to a degree.

So if I can get you about halfway, and you can be proud, your family can be proud.

You can accomplish something you just may have thought was out of your reach.

That's what College Bridge is all about.

It's not just about uh promotion candidates.

And then lastly on that slide, our IFD uh professional development.

There's a lot of information out there, but we want to kind of funnel and identify opportunities for growth for our members and give them that information.

In the hiring retention and culture, just a couple pieces here.

Um we offer our folks annual in-depth physicals, wellness programs that I believe are second to none, and our fitness and and peer support.

Uh under the supportive and workforce culture, you'll see that we talk about we pay a lot of attention and we want to make sure we recognize the mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health of our firefighters.

All that plays into a healthy, capable firefighter showing up every third day, getting on an apparatus, and responding to the needs of this community.

So we can go to the next one.

Our mission, protecting lives, property, and the environment while serving this community with courage, commitment, and compassion.

And I think it involves all of what we want to do each day.

The main point I want to pull out here is remind you of our success indicators.

Every program, every initiative that we have, even throughout our master and strategic plans, it needs to touch one of these areas, or I need to know why we're doing it.

And that's serve our customers, that's both our internal and external customers.

We're here tonight talking about a multi-million dollar budget.

We're going to run the business.

We're going to be strategic, we're going to be smart, we're going to be purposeful with these dollars.

We're going to manage our resources, other than our people, these are our stations, our apparatus, our tools and equipment.

And then we're never going to stop our efforts to develop our employees in some of the ways I already spoke to you about a minute ago.

Just spend a minute on this slide.

But we uh in early early this year we went uh for re-accreditation and we were successful in in being internationally accredited.

I'll remind you there's 30,000 fire departments in the U.S.

I checked this morning.

Of those 30,000, 338 are internationally accredited.

And if you add the the very difficult to obtain ISO one rating of a one out of 30,000, 125 departments are both internationally accredited and ISO one, and your Indianapolis Fire Department is in that group.

So I'm very proud to be in that elite company serving this community.

That makes us the eighth largest community in the world to hold both of those distinctions.

Our fire and life safety uh initiatives.

Uh we did surveys and in-person talks with community meet uh members to find out just what their needs were and where the most critical areas in our uh communities are.

We've uh we're going to embrace technology here.

We've onboarded three major software programs that'll help us be better at doing the things we're charged with doing.

And certainly as we continue to work through our 20-year station replacement plan, that plan involved a goal of doing 10 stations in 20 years.

Uh we have active projects with station 32 in Broad Ripple, Station 20 at 1330 uh North Emerson, and we're going to talk some tonight about our next initiative, which will be Station 33, which is currently located at 34th and Molar Road on building a new Northwest Side station.

We're very grateful that that bond initiative was uh approved at Monday's council meeting.

So thank you for that.

I talked a little bit about our community engagement, and I'm really proud of the fire and life safety folks and the approach they took to find out really uh where our needs were, where the partnerships we can develop, where those opportunities were, uh, and that's really gonna help us help those folks who need it the most.

Another thing we do we call smoke detector blitzes.

We do several of those throughout the year where we'll actually knock on doors.

Uh we used to install batteries, but now the batteries are sealed, they're 10-year lithium batteries, so we don't hand out batteries anymore.

We'll give you a new 10-year lithium battery that's in your smoke detector.

But we'll install those smoke detectors.

People can just call us at headquarters, we can make arrangements to get one out to you.

Um, our scent teams, that's CENT stands for Code Enforcement Night teams.

Our city uh puts on events like nobody else, and the more I travel, I realize that.

But these scent teams are out.

Uh, we're not trying to catch anybody doing something wrong.

When people visit our city, we just want them to be safe.

So these teams are out, they're in uniform, they're going to the events, to the clubs, to the bars, and we're making sure people are safe and can have a good time.

Some of our goals and outcomes, um, you're gonna hear me talk about this a lot over the next few months, but we're gonna launch a program called Pulse Point.

We have partnered with all the major area hospitals, the airport, IEMS, and all of the surrounding fire departments.

In the nutshell, this is an app that when a person calls 911 and there's a cardiac event, if this is in a public area, the person that is a civilian that is closest, registered, qualified in CPR and medical treatment can get that alert and immediately help that individual that's in need.

This has uh expandable programs that will lead us to know about uh automatic electronic defibrillators or AED.

It'll even let us know when the pads are expiring in that unit so we can make sure we don't have an emergency and then the equipment's not working properly.

So Pulse Point is something that I think is going to have far-reaching benefits for our community.

Um for 2026, we're just gonna undergo uh holistic look of how we're responding.

Are we sending the right number of people, the right equipment, the right tools to the right incident?

So every so often we just want to take a look and not just keep doing it because we think we're doing it the right way.

We're gonna take a dive and make sure.

We're gonna take a look at our succession planning and continuity of operations.

If this person goes, if this equipment goes, if this station moves, how do we continue to do what we're charged with doing?

Uh more and more of what we do is EMS, so we want to take a look at our ability to provide advanced life support.

Uh it's always a goal to improve our communications.

Um, and then we want to look at um making sure that our public information is available in multiple language, and this will include an initiative for our firefighters that are on the apparatus at three o'clock in the morning when they get a run.

We want a guide or uh a sheet that can help them ask the most basic questions.

Is someone still inside and understand those basic responses?

So that's another one of our initiatives for uh 2026.

So I appreciate the time and uh we'll certainly get to questions at the end.

I'll now ask uh Dawn to take us through the numbers.

Good evening, Mr.

Chairman and members of the board.

Again, my name is Don Sykes Randall, and I am the CFO for the Indianapolis.

Mr.

Ram, is your microphone on?

It is.

Can you hear me?

Is that better?

My apologies.

Okay, I'm projecting.

Um, so if we look at the slide, the 2026 IFD introduced budget totals 283.3 million dollars, which funds fire service operations, including personnel, pension supplies, services, contracts, equipment, fire station, and fire apparatus maintenance and repairs, as well as various grant programs.

As we look at this breakdown, I will note the adopted budget does not reflect funding for the sworn labor agreement effective January 1, 2025, as that contract was not finalized during um prior to the 2025 budget season.

That said, the 2025 revised budget at 271.2 million reflects fiscal proposals, which include a future $8.2 million request to support the labor increase, as well as two existing proposals.

One was submitted this spring to cover Task Force One deployments, uh, and a proposal was introduced recently to cover an early apparatus lease payoff.

So when we look at the 2026 introduced budget at 283.3 billion, there's a 4.5% increase over our 2025 revised budget.

And the majority of this increase is in character one personnel.

So I did want to note that six million of this increase for personnel is in the fire general fund to cover 50 firefighters who are funded by the safer grant, which expires in February 2026.

I'll revisit grants later in the presentation, but I did want to point out that this increase is related to the end of a grant period.

However, um, before we jump into grants, please know IFD is not a revenue generating department.

So most of our funding comes from property and income taxes.

We do collect a small amount of revenue, around 500,000, 500, between 500 and 600,000 annually for fire code inspections and plan reviews, but we are mainly funded through other sources.

That said, um, recognizing the revenue constraints that are associated with some of these other funding sources.

IFD does actively seek grant opportunities, which include the SAFER grant.

This grant covers firefighter salaries and benefits for a three-year period.

Over the years, we've been very successful in obtaining these grants, which is a huge benefit, but we do want to keep in mind that these grants operate under a three-year period.

So the fire general fund does have to pick up the cost of those firefighters once the grant ends.

That said, IFD currently has two safer grants awards, which each funded 50 firefighters.

As I previously mentioned, one of these safer grants expires in February of 2026.

So those 50 firefighters will no longer be covered by the grant fund and will have to be picked up by the fire general fund.

The remaining SAFER grant expires in January 2027.

And finally, we have a pending SAFER application, which was submitted in July of this year.

If we were to be awarded that grant, it would provide federal funding to cover the salary and benefits for 50 new firefighters in our January 2026 recruit class.

In addition to the SAFER grant, IFD annually receives funding to support Indiana Task Force One, which is 100% funded by FEMA to support urban search and rescue efforts during disaster situations such as hurricanes, earthquakes, or terrorist attacks.

We also pursue funding through the assistance of firefighter or AFG grant program.

Historically, these these applications have been submitted for equipment such as cardiac monitors, fire vehicles, and self-contained breathing apparatuses or SCDAs.

We currently have one pending AFG application for fire hoses and nozzles.

And finally, IFD has been successful with the Urban Area Security Initiative or UASI grant, which provides funding for a range of preparedness activities.

Over the last few years, this grant has allowed us to purchase various supplies and equipment to support Hazmat and Rescue operations.

Moving into the detailed breakdown by character, we begin with character one, which is by far our largest expense.

As you can see, there are four funding sources that cover personnel.

Fire General Character One experienced the largest growth at 11.5 million, which is a result of 6 million for the additional 50 firefighters that are no longer funded by the 2021 Safer Grant, plus approximately 5.5 million to address the 2026 sworn contract obligations, the civilian COLA, as well as a 3% pension contribution increase.

And I did want to point out again the variance between the 2025 adopted and the 2025 revised within fire general character one, includes an $8.2 million increase as the sworn contract was not finalized prior to the 2025 budget season, hence it's not reflected in the 2025 adopted budget.

When we look at the state grant fund, um, please note that this is a contingency budget line in the event task force one were to be activated by the state of Indiana, the state of Indiana.

As I mentioned, the task force is a federal asset, so separate funding must be allocated to support the team for a state activation, which has happened previously during the tornado season.

Then we have the federal grants fund, which covers three FTEs assigned to Task Force One, as well as the two SAFER grants, one expiring in February 26th and other in January 27th, as well as one pending SAFER application.

Finally, within character one, we have the fire pension fund, which is reimbursed by the state and covers monthly payments to retired firefighters, spouses, widows, and children as applicable.

When we look at character two, there are three funding sources.

Within Fire General, there is a slight decrease.

However, the requested appropriation for 2026 will cover contract escalators for personal protective equipment or PPE, such as fire gear, mask, helmets, boots, and gloves.

So IFD will be able to purchase the necessary items to ensure our firefighters are safe.

And again, the state grant fund is a contingency in the event the task force is activated by the state of Indiana.

And finally, we have the federal grant fund, which supports the task force and has a contingency budget in the event the UASI releases 2025 grant opportunities.

So this at this time we haven't received anything, but grants are running in a delay.

So there may be something that pops up for UASI, and so we'll have a contingency budget in the event we apply and are awarded something for 2026.

Within character three, there are five funding sources.

First, we have Fire General, which reflects an increase to support escalators for various obligations such as property and vehicle insurance, medical services, ISA, and building authority chargebacks.

There's also the opioid fund, which covers an existing contract for first responder behavioral health services.

Again, the state grant fund, which is our contingency and would only be utilized if the state activated the task force.

And then the federal grants fund, which covers Task Force One and the Cingency for UASI.

If we look at the change, the 1.3 million reduction from the 2025 to 2026 within the federal grants fund, that is that is the result of the spring fiscal, which came before you earlier this year to cover 2025 deployments that the task force were experiencing this year.

And last but certainly not least, we have the fire accumulative fund, which covers all fire station maintenance and repairs.

The IFD capital budget is in character four, and it's allocated among three funding sources.

The fire general fund um covers the lease payment, which purchase 20 fire apparatus.

The federal grant fund includes Task Force One and a pending AFG application for fire hose and nozzles, and then we have the fire cumulative fund, which covers all fire safety and rescue equipment, as well as our other apparatus lease payments.

The reduction within this fund, the change from the revised 2025, is a result of one-time funding that was allocated this year to pay off a lease.

Finally, we have character five, which funds internal chargebacks for ISA, OCC, and fleet.

There are two funding sources, fire general, which reflects an increase that was funded to cover fleet services as well as um increases for the Office of Corporation Council, and then the grant fund, which covers fleet services for the Indiana Task Force One.

And so that concludes the character breakdown.

However, there's one final slide which shows our 2026 budget by program.

Upon review, you can see the largest program is suppression, which is 195.5 million, which makes sense considering fire services are our core mission.

This program, but by budget, this budgeting by program is a pilot program, so there'll be more reports and details forthcoming.

Um and with that said, I'll hand it back to Chief Malone and I'll be happy to address any questions that you may have about the budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Don.

That was excellent.

I just wanted to uh before we get to questions, if we may, uh I know you heard a lot about our grants.

Uh it's a number I'm really proud of.

Uh we are very active uh in the grant uh in our grant applications.

Uh you heard Don mention hoses and nozzles.

Now, certainly we buy hoses and nozzles, but if there's a grant that we find that may help us there, we're going to use it.

Over the past 10 years, we have been successful in being funded to the tune of 57 million dollars through our applications for grants.

So we will continue to use every medium we can to help us do the things that uh we need to do.

So I'll turn it over to you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh thank you, Ms.

Randall.

Comments of question counselors, Councilman's Carey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Chief, for your presentation.

I have a simple question.

Of the twelve hundred and seventy-six officers or firefighters, how many live outside the county?

Approximately.

I'd have to get that number for you.

Okay.

I don't have that committed to memory, sir.

I apologize.

We can get it for you tomorrow.

No words.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Counselor.

Additional comments or questions.

Counselor Annae.

Thank you very much, Chief Malone and CFO and members of the Annapolis Fire Department present here this evening.

Uh Chief, I know you've been on the department uh very long time, and you have a very distinguished career, and we're all very proud to know you and very proud of the career uh that you have um you have.

Um of the things that has always impressed me about the fire department.

I don't know that I've ever asked you about this, but it's the 94 percent of the fire department are firefighters on the street.

And I and I don't have any other fire department uh in a compare comparable size city to stack that up against, but I would say that that's a pretty remarkable figure.

And I was curious in your 30 plus years of service on the fire department, has that always been the case?

Uh in your estimation that the fire department has always had a very lean administrative uh uh division.

Yes, sir.

Um throughout my career and certainly my time in the administration, uh, IFD has always maintained uh very similar numbers.

Um this well, I'm very proud of our administrative staff.

This job where the rubber meets the road, our firefighters at stations on apparatus responding to the needs of this community.

So that it's always been a very low five, six percent range.

Would you say that's standard?

It is it is not.

Uh we'll look at data over our 10 comparable cities.

has always maintained uh very similar numbers um this well I'm very proud of our administrative staff this job where the rubber meets the road are firefighters at stations on apparatus responding to the needs of this community so that it's always been a very low five six percent range would you say that's standard it is it is not uh when we look at data over our 10 comparable cities now I'm not I don't compare us to LA or New York I'm talking the the Charlotte's the Memphis the Denvers the Jacksonville's uh Columbus um you'll find that they have larger administrative staff not being critical just a fact what do you what do you find and I don't want to spend too much time on this but I it it is I think uh a point uh that is important to note what what do you find to be the long sustaining reason for your success in keeping that number small just incredible people that are willing to do the work of probably three people because um I think if you did that comparison you'd see double at least administrative staff members but the folks behind me the 48 civilians um they're just willing to to step up and do what needs to be done but each of those positions could and should have at least another person working with them to to get things done but these folks come in every day and they they make it happen.

We have many reasons to be proud of our fire department many of them have been stated tonight I hope that that is not lost among the reasons to be proud of our fire department.

Thank you very much counselor.

Thank you counselor additional comments or questions counselors Councillor Bain thank you Mr Chair and thank you chief for the presentation appreciate everything that you guys do not only within the six townships that you cover but also the mutual aid agreements that you have for those of us that represent the west side of Indianapolis um a constituent actually reached out to me yesterday and asked that I ask you a question regarding the omnisource fire and they said and they were phrasing it away as you know if you find FD has to repeatedly go to a same business or a same site over and over again what's that process like I know I think it was a Hamilton County community decided they were actually going to fine businesses that were repeat offenders of having to continue use city services not necessarily advocating for that but what's that process like I imagine a fire marshal goes in does some kind of investigation.

That's exactly right with within our fire and life safety division formerly fire prevention uh but it's our terminology to use fire and life safety we have a code enforcement um section uh and you hit it right on the head those individuals if the once the fire is under control and it's safe we're going to send those people out to do a proper inspection again under the idea of making it safe if violations are encountered they will be noted written up communicated and then followed up on we call those follow-up inspections to make sure that those violations uh are corrected if they're not then we go to the next step uh we also have um depending on the nexus of the incidents we would have our fire investigations unit go out to find um if this is uh a deliberately set if it's a arson fire uh if there's some other activities that uh we need to bring those folks in to help all of this is an effort to be compliant and make that structure safe uh for the people that work there but certainly for the uh neighborhoods that surround those businesses yeah I appreciate that when when you say the next step uh I have does that include fines does that include like saying this building you can't enter this building until you know these violations are fixed what does that look like yeah again you're you're you're right where you need to be certainly we'll write the violations we want to give people a chance to become code compliant but if not those steps uh those additional steps I spoke about could include a fine could include um ceasing operations shutting the business down um legal ramification if uh you know um a crime has been committed so we'll we don't start there but we have ended up there on occasion and that process is is laid out and if that's what ness if that's what's necessary to bring about that compliance and make it safe then that's exactly what we'll do.

Appreciate it thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you counselor councilmancorming thank you Mr.

Chairman thank you for your presentation couple questions so um page three and four you had the sworn officers the numbers are different one's 1276 and one's 1264 is that just a like a day snapshot that makes that that 1264 reflects today 1276 is our recommended staffing based on our formula that's how many we should have the uh 1264 was as of today ma'am okay so the 1276 is what's funded as well then yes ma'am um the SACA grant that's pending will will you have an answer back on that before the budget is finalized?

The uh 1264 was as of today, ma'am.

Okay, so the 1276 is what's funded as well then.

Yes, ma'am.

Um the SACA grant that's pending.

Will will you have an answer back on that before the budget's finalized?

Um yeah, Don and I talked about this before.

The the process with everything going on in Washington, things are slowing down.

So when that uh application period would normally start, I would say September, October, we would usually know if we're successful.

I think it was and help me down July.

Yeah, yeah.

We're four months behind.

So typically the applications are due in March.

This year they were due in July.

So whereas we would have heard something by now, mid-September, um, we're expecting a four to five month delay.

So our hope is we'll hear something by the end of this year, first part of next year.

Um then the money that we get reimbursed, right?

From not, I guess their grants, but so from the state and federal out of the what was the total budget number 283?

283.

How much is reimbursed estimate average?

Do you know?

I like I know the one-off grants are one thing, but task force one, they're not they don't always happen, but I'm just curious if there's a percentage of what the what is reimbursed at 283.

So I can look at apologies.

I can't say I'll have to look at one of the reports, which I don't have uh, but anything that's listed outside of the fire general fund.

So anything that that would be in our federal grants fund, fund 25539, our state funding 25707, those items would be reimbursable by a grant.

So the non-reimbursables would be fire general 1555.

Okay.

Um and then I guess one last thing going off, Counselor uh Bain said I've act so Zors is Zors is in my district on the west side, um, and there have been fires there, and I've had some constituents reach out.

Um in my head as an engineer and thinking like how those fires can happen in the heat of the summer with the batteries or whatever could be left in the car.

Um is there a plan like so uh understanding how those fires can happen that are different?

Is do they have a do those folks have a plan?

Are they supposed to like keep their piles wet or is there anything that they do with it?

I guess so.

I'm asking for some constituents as well.

Uh what would be the recommendation for them potentially?

Well, if you can get me the information, I can make sure that we have someone go out there and pay them a visit again in a in a friendly compliant manner.

But they should have data sheets and emergency plans, evacuation plans for the hazards that they have at a business, which certainly can be multiple and different.

Uh they should have plans in place to uh first of all alert uh emergency response, but what what they're to do, what their employees are to do if X incident is uh was to occur.

So if you uh give me some context, we'll uh Chief Beard is here and he oversees our community risk uh reduction bureau.

We can get someone out there and make sure that's a safe operation.

Okay, and I don't think it's often I think it has more with to do with our environment that like what's going on in the day and stuff, but yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you, and I will reach out.

So I just did some click max 50 million to be reimbursable between the grants and the pension fund.

Well, I never turn it on.

I got you.

Oh, the 283, 50 million is reimbursable between the state and pension funding.

Thank you, Counselor.

Council Brown.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Chief, for all this.

Uh you mentioned contingency planning and uh also that you're receiving at least some funding from property taxes.

I know in previous years there's been some talk with townships about consolidation, and I know that gets political, and I'm not trying to get you in any trouble with anybody, but how much um are you hearing from our neighboring you know township fire departments that due to SB1 and some of the changes at the state level?

You know, does that make consolidation back on the table?

Does that cause other you know mutual aid problems, or is that impacting it at all?

Uh the second part of that it it doesn't affect our automatic or mutual.

We have wonderful relationships with all of our partners, uh and what I said before about IFD.

I would be comfortable in saying with uh those entities also.

If you call, we're gonna come.

Uh we'll work it out later, the rest of it.

Um we are uh in conversations with uh Wayne Township.

Uh there's a financial meeting on Monday the 15th.

Um, because if the numbers don't work out, it really doesn't matter what color t-shirts are how many there are.

Uh but we're going into that uh hoping that something can be done, but nothing's done until it's done.

As far as any other uh excluded city or township, uh there's no conversations that I've been involved in.

Um so that that's where we're at right now.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, counselor.

Counselor uh leader Maori.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Chief, um, one thing I wanted to touch back on here was you had mentioned the um well, first and foremost, thank you for being here this evening.

Thank you to the women and men of IFD for serving the city and protect keeping us safe and uh the thankless job you all do.

So thank you for that.

And one of the things I wanted to touch on though was the I always knew you gave out the smoke detectors if people needed them.

I didn't know maybe you've said this in the past, I missed it, but you guys install them as well.

Is that what you said?

Yes, sir.

We can make arrangements to uh install them during the people can come get them up, we can deliver them, but certainly if a person wants one installed, our main goal is to get an operating smoke detector in that residence however we need uh to do it.

But yes, we will uh install the smoke alarms also.

Okay, that's that's fantastic.

I I I guess I just had never realized that or don't remember hearing it, but um I think all too often we see on the news from our partners in the media that uh homes that catch on fire often we hear that they didn't have a working smoke detector in there or smoke alarm in there, and uh could have made all the difference potentially.

So to know that you all not only you will give them to them but also install them for them is is a big big win, I think, for people that really are in need of that.

So thank you for clarifying.

Thank you for your questions.

Thank you, Councilor Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And uh Chief, thank you, sir, your team, all of you, um, everybody who's who's participating to keep Indianapolis safe.

Uh super grateful for all the work and men and women of of IFD.

Um, you know, your organization is is one of that I have the highest level of trust for when I see these come through.

Uh I know it's the most professional every time.

What I'm actually really intrigued by this time is the program budget.

The this view is phenomenal to see another breakdown.

So whoever's idea this was, I just want to give double credit to that because this is really helpful looking up here to see where dollars are going, especially as I I always talk about you know wanting to create uh the smartest city in America.

I say it all the time about Indianapolis.

And the two things that stick out that happen to be right next to each other on here uh are technology and wellness.

And I know you guys are doing a lot of work.

I know the union is a phenomenal job of of wellness, and so a lot of things are covered there as well.

Uh again, setting another standard that is above and and beyond.

But I just want to talk about technology for a second uh and just kind of understand what what the goals and initiatives are of this million dollars in the the budget coming up for next year and what the anticipated plans are so within the technology budget.

If we look at the program report, generally it's our IT.

So annually we budget to replace X amount of mobile data computers that go into our fire apparatus.

We have an annual budget that supports ISA, which supports our um software refresh.

Then we pay for our own software things out of our budget.

So it's software and it's equipment primarily.

Okay.

That was my fear.

So it's you it's your chargebacks to ISA essentially.

So we do have some chargebacks, but then we do have a standalone character three and character four budget within our IT department within the fire department where we support software and where we make equipment purchases.

Okay.

So it's so it's within two different characters, character three, ISA chargeback, and then character three, four within fire journal fund, which we manage those purchases.

Okay, and I say this all in well intent, right?

I understand the main mission here is is suppression first and foremost.

You guys show up everywhere every time.

The where I was more curious is on the the innovative side of of technology and you know what allocations may be there, and if there isn't any, that's just okay.

That's just the fact of what it is.

Um, but um, you know, I was sitting here just thinking about you know, you guys have you know the revenue generating that you did mention coming in and you you're sending out people to do that.

And the the first thing that came through my mind is you know, are there self-service models that can do that through you know having an individual end user walk around and and do it through their phone to say you both on the the capital here at the city um but by implementing innovative technology to do so.

Um so just things of that nature is what comes to mind when I look at the technology budget, and I I know you know that with a million bucks there's not much room for innovation in there.

That is the background is IT.

So um if there's ever one that comes up in that world, feel free to use me as a resource um not for personal gain or anything of that nature, but just to make sure that the that Indianapolis um is set up in the right track.

Uh but I I do believe we have an option or in there is room for improvement, and again, you're working within your means, and I and by no means this doesn't say anything negative about the budget.

Uh just something that I look forward to in all divisions, uh, and I think public safety is one where we could really use a lot of uh opportunity for investment in technology.

Thank thank you, Councilor Hart.

Did you have a comment, Chief?

Yeah, I just want to say I appreciate the the um the question, uh but uh we do the technology that we talked about, the software uh does help us on our inspections, it does help us on our um data management.

We're looking at advancing our drones.

We have a half dozen drones that that we uh uh are employing now, or underwater location devices for you know the unfortunate incident if if we have to you know search a body of water.

So uh we're always on the cusp of looking at what can help us help others, uh and and we'll always be open and take a look at those things.

So thank you, sir.

Thank you, Alistair.

Counselor Boots, thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you, Chief, for your uh impressive annual presentation.

Um my questions are just logistical.

Um is there an ambulance at every fire station?

There is not.

We partner with um IEMS or Chief Hartnett is here.

I would say uh 20 plus, maybe um BLS, uh basic life support and ALS advanced life support ambulances are uh quartered at IFD stations.

Yeah, some somewhere 20 to 25 maybe would be in the ballpark that there are ambulances uh running out of those stations.

And are that spaced equally around the county to maximize coverage?

Is that what determines which station is they uh the we let them deploy their ambulances where they need to be to cover the area and just in my mind looking at where they're at, it is it's it's saturated, it's not concentrated in one area, it's dispersed throughout uh our IFDs and IEMS's response areas.

Great.

And then um my annual question too of can you uh confirm which north side and northeast side stations have ladder trucks?

Yeah, you always get me in trouble with the other counselors.

Um, when they have office buildings in their district, they can ask you the same question.

They do.

All right, well, station four at 84th and township line road has a brand new mid-mount.

Uh that means the ladder is in the center and goes backwards.

Uh it's a hundred-foot ladder, uh, it's in service.

Um they have a new engine ordered, so you'll have a new engine and ladder at that station.

Station six is at um 86 M Westfield.

Uh they currently today have a brand new ladder and engine uh running out of that station.

Um station nine uh in the Castleton area uh also has a brand new engine and ladder running out of that station.

So we're we feel good about our complement uh equipment on the uh northeast side.

Lawrence, uh we dual staff a uh station uh 36 with uh city of Lawrence.

They have an engine company there, and we have a ladder 36.

We've been there for a few years now.

That that relationship's working very well.

Um they have a new ladder coming.

We expect to receive it in November.

That's like the 7,000 Oakland area, 76, some I think it's 7620 Oakland Road.

So typically do all the ladder trucks reach the same height or do different trucks have different there's there's different ones, and and we put them strategically in the area where it'll cover the the hazards in that area.

I think uh a range would be between 75 and 110 feet for most of our fleet.

Great.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Chief.

Final questions or comments.

Anyone in the audience could speak to the chief's um presentation for the budget?

Thank you, sir.

Welcome.

Please have a one market.

Before we open the floor to public comments, we'd like to remind committee members and the public of a few grow moves.

So everyone can have a fair chance to speak and be heard.

It is important that we each observe the following rules.

First, each speaker will be limited to two minutes.

Second, any public comments must reach maybe to the agenda item under consideration.

Third, speakers who strengthen the item under consideration or become unduly repetitious, may be asked to move on to their next point or conclude our comments.

Finally, attendees who cause disruptions and prevent the committee from proceeding through tonight's agenda in a reasonably efficient manner will be removed.

Please remember that some types of threatening speech are incitements at violence are not protected by the First Amendment at all.

We would deal with those issues if they come up, but we don't think they will.

And now, Mr.

Chairman, if a committee member asks for consent to adopt these rules, we can proceed with public comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All thank you, Ms.

Clerk.

Thank you, committee members.

Uh sorry, your name for the record.

Uh good evening, Councillor Shannon Whitely, President of Local 416.

Um, on behalf of the IFTE district, I am here to support Chief Malone and IFD's 2026 proposed budget.

Um, I I would like to briefly talk about a couple of key points for your consideration.

Umitiatives.

Like Chief Alone said, our firefighters' physical, mental, and spiritual health is our top priority.

Uh, these indices, such as physicals, peer support program, as well as our fitness and rehabilitation programs ensure that when our firefighters are injured in any capacity, they get the resources they need to continue to keep this city and its citizens safe.

Another important piece of this budget is the 65 new recruits expected in 26.

These new members will replace our future retirements and ensure our 44 firehouses are properly staffed and maintained a high level of service the IFD provides across its 285 square miles of coverage.

And then lastly, voting for this budget also ensures funding for our well-deserved and earned collective bargaining agreement.

This agreement ensures fair and competitive wages that align with our neighboring uh fire departments to retain our committed firefighters.

So, counselors, I respectfully urge your approval of this budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Anyone else in the audience could speak to this proposal?

Presentation for the chief.

Final comments from committee members.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Ms.

Randall.

Appreciate you both.

Thank you, everyone.

Committee members, you want to take a quick two-minute break uh prior to the uh Chief Betty coming forward.

Two minutes, Perkins, two minutes.

Chief, you ready?

All right, uh, everyone, welcome back from our brief two-plus minute break.

Um we have our final presentation for 2026 budget of the Indianapolis Public Police Department.

Chief Bailey.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Chairman Robinson and members of the public safety and criminal justice committee.

Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to uh present tonight.

I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to each of you for your continued support of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the men and women who serve our city each and every day.

I also want to take a moment to thank Mayor Hogsett for his leadership and for the budget proposal before you.

This administration has been consistent in its support for IMPD, and this budget proves that once again.

He has delivered on that promise, and at a time when law enforcement agencies across the country are struggling to recruit and retain officers.

Having a city that values and invests in its police department is essential.

This budget ensures that the men and women of the IMPD are supported, not just in words, but in real action.

Before I move any further into my remarks, I would be remiss if I didn't pause and acknowledge what tomorrow represents.

September 11th, 2001 is a date forever etched in our national memory.

Nearly 3,000 lives were taken in a single morning.

Families were shattered, communities were changed, and our nation was called upon to respond in ways that forever altered public safety.

We honor not only those who perished that day, but also the first responders who ran toward danger.

Many of them never came home.

For all of us who wear a badge, it is a remind reminder of the sacred trust placed in us to protect, to serve, and to sacrifice if necessary.

We carry that responsibility with us every single day.

And we should remember those heroes and those that still suffer from that day twenty-two years ago now.

Turning to the work of IMPD, this past year has been a year of progress and of opportunities and continued determination.

I want to share both where we stand today and our priorities that will guide us through the remainder of 2025 and to 2026.

First, let me be clear the progress that we've are making at IMPD is not mine alone.

It belongs to the officers, detectives, and the professional staff.

They face tremendous pressures, carry heavy burdens and expectations, and work through complex challenges daily on our behalf.

And yet, through it all, their commitment to this city and to our community never wavers.

They show up day and night for good and bad to answer calls, solve crimes, and serve our neighbors.

This year alone, in just nine months, our officers have faced extremely dangerous situations.

They've been shot, they've been shot at, they've been attacked and injured simply for doing their job serving and protecting our community.

We understand that there are risks that come along with this profession, and we accept them freely.

We should take a moment not just tonight, but every time we get an opportunity to say thank you to these brave and selfless men and women who put their lives on the line because they are our heroes.

So where do things stand?

I'm proud to tell you here tonight that year to date Indianapolis has seen measurable reductions in both violent and property crime.

Those are not just numbers on a chart, they represent fewer victims, fewer families devastated, and safer streets across our city.

We are talking about lives saved.

But even as we work recognize that progress, we cannot lose sight of the fact that every single life lost to violence is a tragedy.

To the families who have lost loved ones know this.

We grieve with you, we stand with you, and we will not stop working until no family has to endure that kind of pain.

One of the most important stories to tell over the past year has been our continued success with our gun violence reduction strategy, which includes INPD's community enhanced community safety initiative, the Indiana Crime Guns Task Force, our real-time crime center, our victim advocates, our new overdose task force, and many others.

This work has been carried out in close partnership with the Office of Public Health and Safety, Indie Peace, community organizations, and our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners.

This strategy is comprehensive.

It balances enforcement with prevention and intervention.

It focuses it on the small number of individuals driving a majority of our violence and on those who may commit violence.

And it engages our community in ways that make real lasting change.

Because of these combined efforts, murders in Indianapolis have fallen 50% since 2021, our city's most violent year.

In 2025, so far, our violent overall violent crime is down 23% and property crime down another 17%.

These are not just statistics, these are lives saved and saved and fewer people victimized.

And it is proof that when IMPD works alongside our community, when we work together, we can make meaningful change.

But these successes that we've seen so far don't just belong to IMPD.

It belongs to our community and to our public safety partners who stand shoulder to shoulder with us, all of us working together is what is making a difference.

And it is that collaboration that gives me confidence for the future.

And looking ahead, technology will continue to be one of the most important tools that we have.

This budget budget proposal funds those systems that allow us to leverage tech data, analysis, and real-time intelligence that makes our city safer.

I want to specifically recognize our analyst and real-time crime center.

Their work often behind the scenes has proactively solved crimes, led to arrest, and helped remove illegally possessed firearms from our streets.

They are an indispensable part of our strategy.

When detectives are working a tough case, when officers are searching for a suspect vehicle, when we're trying to connect the dots between incidents, it is our analysts and our real-time crime center who provide information that helped turn leads into arrests.

Technology is not a replacement for officers.

It is a force multiplier, and it's changing the way we keep our city safe.

But I want to be absolutely clear that 2025 is not over.

We still have three and a half months left.

We are not slowing down.

We are not going to stop doing our part to keep this community safe.

Our momentum is real, but it's fragile, and we cannot afford to step back.

We will continue to push forward every single day till the end of this year and into 2026.

And looking ahead, my priorities remain clear.

Continue to drive down violent crime.

We will do our part to hold vendors accountable, those who commit crimes in our city of violence while investing in prevention to stop crime before it starts.

We will continue to support our officers and professional staff, invest in their well-being, training, development so they can serve this community with professionalism and integrity.

Expand community partnerships.

Trust is the foundation of public safety.

We will continue to strengthen our relationships, improve transparency, and make sure our community has a voice in shaping how their neighborhoods are policed.

Leveraging technology and data, continue continuing to build on our work of our analysts, our real-time crime center, and ensuring our officers have the tools and resources to turn information into action and action into safety.

And we want to use our resources wisely, maximize efficiency, reduce unnecessary demands on officer time, and make sure tax dollars are used responsibly and effectively.

The budget before you reflects these priorities.

It ensures our officers have the equipment and the training they need, that our analysts and technology are fully supported, and that we can continue building partnerships across the community that make lasting change possible.

And before I wrap up my remarks, I want to address something head on.

I acknowledge the fear and concern in our community surrounding immigration enforcement.

Let me be clear.

IMPD has not changed its stance.

We are not participating in sweeps related to federal civil immigration law violations.

Our mission is public safety, and that means protecting everyone in our city.

While we maintain strong partnerships with our federal law enforcement counterparts on a daily basis, IMPD has not entered into any agreements to enforce federal immigration laws, nor are we required to do so.

With our limited number of officers and staff, we must remain focused on driving down violent crime and protecting the city of Indianapolis.

That remains our number one focus.

Just as important when officers are conducting routine investigations, they do not ask about immigration status.

State law is clear.

Officers may not inquire about a status of someone is a witness, a victim, or is reporting a crime.

The law guides our work, and we follow it.

No one should hesitate to call the police when they are in danger or victimized.

The officers and professional staff of the INPD are dedicated to serving everyone, and you can expect to be treated with dignity and respect at all times.

So in closing, I want to thank again thank Mayor Hogsett for his steadfast support of this department and thank the chairman and members of this committee for your partnership and your stewardship of public safety resources.

I also want to thank our community and our many public safety partners.

Their willingness to work alongside us, share the responsibility, and remain engaged is what makes real progress possible.

The trust of this council, combined with the hard work of our officers, professional staff, and the resilience of and the partnership with our community is helping us move in the right direction.

But our work is not finished.

Together we'll keep pushing, and together we will keep building a safer Indianapolis for all.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I will get into the presentation now.

I hope you didn't think that was the end of it.

I'll start by introducing our CFO Deb Hall to the right.

She'll walk us through the detailed budget slides in just a moment, but before that, I'll set the stage of where IMPD is today.

Our people, our progress, and our priorities moving forward.

Our mission and values guide everything that we do.

We protect and serve with integrity.

We build trust with our community to solve problems.

We strive to be the premier law enforcement agency in the nation and attract and retain highly skilled professional and compassionate officers and professional staff.

Our goal is to build partnerships and promote public safety for every single neighborhood.

We cover all of Indianapolis, Marion County with the exception of Lawrence Speedway, Beach Grove, and Southport, serving over 900,000 people and 400 square miles.

And while you often hear from me as chief, the real done, real work is done by our officers and professional staff who care deeply about our community.

Supporting me are two assistant chiefs.

And together they oversee three divisions led by three deputy chiefs.

Deputy Chief Tanya Terry, who runs our operations division, which is our largest division.

Deputy Chief Kendell Adams over our criminal investigations division, and Deputy Chief Kevin Weddington, who is over administration and technology.

Additionally, in the Chief's Office, an important bureau is the Professional Standards Bureau, led by Commander Grace Sibley.

She manages internal affairs, disciplinary matters, agency policies, manages our oversight boards, and ensures accountability and integrity across the department processes.

She is also the first woman, Latina woman appointed to any chief staff in the history of IPD and IMPD.

Other key bureaus include our special operations bureau, our operational support bureau, and our community engagement and outreach bureau, which I'll talk a little bit about later.

Our staffing numbers as of uh this week, 1,409 sworn officers, 334 short of our authorized strength of 1743.

Our professional staffs is 221 filled positions with 66 vacancies out of the 287 that are authorized.

To keep our community safe, we're still relying on overtime to supplement staffing covering our neighborhoods, major events, and our conventions.

We want to be a police department that reflects the community we serve.

While we've made progress, we still have a lot of work to do.

Twenty-six percent of my appointed staff are African American, 26% of my staff are women, and as I mentioned, we appointed our first Latina woman ever to serve in an appointed staff earlier this year.

These are talented leaders, innovators, and I simply could not do my job without the work that they do every single day.

Agency demographic, 80% 87% of our sworn staff are men.

Uh and this charge so that shows there's no significant gap between pay between our male and female officers.

The labor agreement ensures that officers are paid the same regardless or regardless of any other things, rather than uh with the exception of their longevity on the agency.

The chart here shows that about 66% of our professional staff are women, and again, no significant uh pay gap or disparities exist in our professional staff.

Part of our agency staff uh agency staffing and our retention strategies was to what we've done since 2019 is increase the starting pay to one of the highest anywhere in the nation, and thanks to our new labor agreement.

Our the IMP now officer offers one of the highest salaries for veteran officers anywhere in the Midwest.

We provide more career opportunities than any other agency in Indiana, and plus professional growth for both our sworn and professional staff.

Um a couple of highlights I want to talk about in this labor agreement was the 12 weeks of parental leave.

That's really unheard of anywhere in the country, but is a retention tool and a recruiting tool for our women who don't have to make a choice in their career about between their family and their profession or their chosen profession.

We still have a lot of more work to do, but I think that sends a strong message of our support about family on the IMPD.

Some of our some of our suggested successes, just a few of our successes.

We completed phase one of our strategic plan, which we've talked about.

It's a five-year strategic plan where we've taken input from both our community and our officers.

More information will be coming on that next month.

We've reduced violence across the board in every category.

Our crime guns task force and our proactive teams are seizing more guns than ever before, illegally possessed guns, crime guns.

We've increased our contacts from our mobile crisis teams.

We continue to make technology upgrades as the budget allows.

We've made some recruitment gains and applications and those that are standing reporting for testing, stronger community connections through our revamped community engagement office, and we're consistently working on policy improvement to remove ambiguity and improve consistency across the department.

Before you're going to look at uh just the crime, major crime categories.

This is what what uh this is violent crime and a property crime since 2021.

I'm often asked why why are you why just 2021?

All right, why 2021?

Well, it was our most violent year.

Most people in the statistics world will tell you you need to do a five-year look back at a minimum rather than year-to-year comparisons.

They don't tell the whole story.

Additionally, in 2021, we made a major change within INPD, creating the enhanced community safety initiative, which really focused our proactive teams on the small number of people, places, and behaviors, focusing on crime guns and those that are using guns to commit their crime.

In 2022, is when we saw the 150 million dollar investment from ARPA funds into the gun violence reduction strategy.

So there are tremendous differences between 2020 and before that and 2021 and beyond.

One of the things that I think is problematic in this in this that's not listed on here, but their work, they've seized more handgun conversion devices than than ever before.

A handgun conversion device simply put on the back of a Glock gun can help you, it can allow you to empty the entire magazine in less than two seconds.

Dangerous devices that that we're continuing to see more of on the street.

Some additional successes are related to our MCAT team.

Everybody knows what that is as a co-respond model partnership between us and Eskenazi Hospital.

Every district has an MCAP representation.

They primarily work days and uh certain hours during the day, and that's because of that's when services are available.

That's when we can divert people from emergency departments and emergency rooms to uh actual help.

Uh they follow up extensively and build rapport with those individuals in our uh community who need our help and are in crisis.

Northwest District has two teams, and so when you see their stats, they'll they'll uh they'll have a little more uh they'll have more runs, uh, but the the it is very uh successful in all of our districts.

And I'll I'll make a distinction here quickly between what an active run is and what total runs me on the next slide.

Umops, I went the wrong way.

So an active run uh a couple years ago we started dispatching them directly because when you call 911 now, they will ask you is this a police fire or is uh EMS or is this a mental health emergency?

And so those trigger some questions from our dispatchers, and based on those questions, they will ask for an MCAT officer or a team to respond to that run rather than sending one of our beat cars to those situations.

So uh the active runs this year, about 3,079 runs, and the other uh runs, including that total would be follow-ups, so emergency uh detention follow-ups or referrals from people in our community or referrals from officers who want or need MCAT to go out and check on a person in our community who may be having a crisis.

Uh programmatic success is our technology investments we've made over the last several years in our technology is making a different difference thanks to the support that you are providing, and they are paying off and paying their dividends.

Crimes have been prevented, crimes have been solved because of these tools and technology makes our department more efficient, effective, and makes it safer for our officers and the community that we serve.

A little more of what we're doing in our recruiting world.

We want to see the brightest people and people with a servant's heart and with empathy, compassion, and a love for this community to serve on our police department.

Like I mentioned before, applications are rising, I think, but fueled by higher pay and by our new recruitment strategies, strategies like interview now, uh, which allow constant contact between our recruiters and people in the community, young people who like to communicate via text.

There's currently 1,500 engagements going on currently between our officers and recruitment and recruiters.

We've launched a new website, which I encourage everybody to go check out.

It's the same place, it just looks new.

Join IMPD.endy.gov, join IMPD.indieG.gov, and check out that new exciting website that really showcases our officers and the ex and the opportunities that we offer.

We're in our second year in our Colts partnership.

If you've been to a cold scaling game and you get the Scout magazine, you can flip through there and see two of our mounted police officers and some information about how to join IMPD.

And we're expanding our outreach to military bases, universities, and career fairs, including potentially taking our physical fitness test on the road so people don't have to travel in from out of state if they're on a military base to finish that test.

And join INPD week will commits here in a few weeks.

And the first event is on October 1st called From Interest to Impact, and more information will be shared with that as we move forward.

As I mentioned, community engagement and outreach bureau has a new sense of energy, new leadership under the leadership of uh Major Corey Mims, who I will take a minute to boast a bit of next month at the Indiana International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Major Mims will be recognized as a 40 under 40.

This is an international organization, and we're proud of his leadership and what he's bringing.

Over 12,000 positive engagements with our community this year.

That includes our police athletic leave, league mentoring in schools, and engagements with our the public, positive interactions through the books and badges, and the list goes on and on.

I'm really proud of the work that they're doing, and they do it with five officers.

Some civilian staff and then collateral duty officers from around the agency pitching in to coach football, baseball.

I'm super proud of the new program of girls' volleyball that now is still believe has an undefeated team.

Thank you very much.

Our Powell Powell kids are an unbelievable.

I know that the fire department mentioned this as well.

Officer wellness is a top priority for us.

Healthy employees serve our community better.

While she's not pictured, that's Gus in the picture there.

It's one of our three service dogs.

We did add Grace Luna, a golden retriever.

She is assigned to our victim assistance unit, so not only is she available for our officers and professional staff, she's taken out on scenes, homicide scenes, other critical incident scenes to interact with our neighbors.

No one can have a sad face when they see Grace Luna Grace on the scene.

This budget continues to fund our Protein Tactical Wellness app, which allows our officers private check-ins and access to counseling services from a wide variety of concerns that they may have.

We have had unbelievable engagement from the officers in this police department, close to 1,300 of the 1,700 employees engaged in this survey, and 2,000 of our residents participated from every zip code, every township, every demographic that we know of in our community participated and provided feedback both on the surveys and in-person focus groups led by Taylor Advising, who's analyzing that data.

We want to create a clear department mission and our values, measurable goals, and action steps based on that feedback.

And the community and our officers will be provided another opportunity to provide feedback on that draft plan as we release that before we release that at the end of our at the beginning of 2026.

Our goals and priorities going into 26 won't change that much.

We want safer neighborhoods, and we're going to continue to reduce violent crime, community engagement and outreach, continue to look at technology and how we can leverage that to make our jobs more effective and efficient.

There are still tools available to us.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Deb to go into the budget.

Good evening, Chairman and committee members.

Let's get started with the revenue.

Basically, most of our revenue comes from ordinance violations, incident report sales, bodyborne camera footage, record fees, reports, various fines, sales of equipment and vehicles, miscellaneous, other um, which is the minority damage claims.

So I will say 623,000 comes from licenses and permits, 2.3 is actually grant funding that we will get reimbursed for grants that we get awarded.

4.3 million covers services to basically constituents, and some of that is record fees, fingerprint services, police escorts for sports teams and dignitaries that visit the city.

345K is from various fines, which include alarm ordinances, court fines, and penalties and the like.

Moving on to grants, I want to say that IMPD is aggressive and actively pursues grant funding to support new programs and expand effective programs.

The 2026 budget includes carryover funds, awards expected in grants IMPD plans to pursue next year.

Some of the programs that we have, as Chief mentioned earlier, is the Indiana Crime Gun Task Force.

We do receive some funding from the state to cover some of those activities in 2026.

It will cover some overtime for IMPD as well as some equipment and technology.

We have the community violence and intervention program, which is basically continuing our non-fatal shooting victim service program that was started under ARPA.

We were able to secure some grant funding from the Department of Justice to continue that project and to continue to serve victims of crime by providing them with mental health services.

And there's also a component where we have community-based organizations where we feed people from in our program to their programs.

So the next slide is the budget breakdown by character.

It will also include some additional funding for our maintenance at the ROC.

So our overall budget for next year is 358 million five hundred and eighty-six thousand three hundred and fifty dollars, and it's divided between several funds, including state law enforcement and grant funding.

Okay, this next slide is the budget by fund.

Um it just covers how our budget is divided between the several funding sources, and it will show the actual variances between the 2025 revised and the 2026 introduced budget.

Some major changes are that we have a $7.6 million increase in general funds, which is comprised of everything from personnel through equipment.

It includes the union contract increases, it includes our increases in ISA chargebacks.

It also includes an additional payment for our loan payments for our vehicle that we purchased in 25.

We had one payment budget for our last tranche of purchases.

In 2026, we'll have two payments for that.

So that went up.

State law enforcement funds, both state and federal went up by 550,000.

That was strictly from fund balance.

Federal grants went up by 594,000 based on carryover and what we expect to apply for and receive in 2026.

We are expecting an increase in the UASI funding that we get.

So that also covers that.

City cumulative fund, that is what includes that $695,000 additional vehicle loan payment.

So you'll see that reflected there.

And police pension went down $500,000.

I want to point out that the police pension fund that we budget for is for the 53 plan.

It is a closed fund, so over time, those funds will continue to decrease.

Personal services.

Here is how we're funding our staffing in 2026.

I wanted to point out that this budget represents 81% of the total IMPD budget.

Police pension is budgeted at 27 million, and that should cover our needs for 2026.

Overall increase over all personal services is 2.89%.

And again, this funding does cover the increased salary needs per the contract agreement.

It also includes the cost of living adjustments, health insurance increases, as well as the clothing allowance that was negotiated during the labor negotiations.

Personal services continued.

Our hope is to hire 120 recruits, hopefully more if applications come in.

Those classes are tentatively scheduled for April, August, and December.

And we have 184 vacancies that will be used to fund overtime so that we can cover the special events and the staffing shortages on each shift.

Our professional staff, our authorized number for professional staff is 287.

We have 10 projected for hires in 2026.

We have 45 vacancies that are budgeted currently in overtime, but if we can hire those civilian positions, that overtime will be used to fund actual civilian positions.

Okay, some of the um overtime and special events that we cover are you know major sports events like the Indy 500, all the sports games that are around the city, citywide events like the mini marathon, Indy Pride, things like that.

Um why it matters is because we have to provide security safety for the people attending the events.

So IMP will always stand up and they will always provide the staffing needed to control the public crowds, traffic, anything that we need to do to keep the city safe.

Okay, so the next slide is for our supplies, which basically covers our uh various law enforcement supplies that we purchase every year, uh includes supplies for our property room to contain the evidence, to store the evidence, um our gloves, it general office supplies.

It includes anything that we would need to operate a police department.

I don't have specific examples, but we we buy a lot.

Um I want to say that our increase in character two, which is the supply budget is 631,000, um, and it's 18.14 percent for supplies.

Um, it represents one percent of the total IMPD budget.

The there are the 400,000 increase from state and federal again is from fund balance.

Uh, the 233,000 increase in federal funds is just because we're expecting more federal grants.

Um, and of course, some of the key drivers were increased funds in anticipated grant carryover as well as grants we plan to pursue in 2026.

Other services and charges, this budget um is has increased uh has a net increase of 373,000 over the 2025 revised budget, which is only a 0.94% increase, which is basically due to ISA chargebacks in building authority rent.

Our contract budget, other services and charges accounts for only 11% of the budget.

And again, most of that budget, at least 45% 46% of the budget covers our ISA chargebacks and building rent.

The other 54% or so covers our leases for our outside buildings, our maintenance, our utilities, repairs, mowing, just anything that we need to do service-wise to keep IMPD running.

Our screening software and just miscellaneous other software used by law enforcement.

This budget increased by 1.2 million.

Total variants over 2025 revised is 11.35%.

Our capital outlays represents 3% of our total budget.

Expected next year.

Some of the plan uses for the funds, um, law enforcement and office equipment, cruiser loan payments, communications equipment, and cameras and related technology.

Um vehicles uh are not part of this budget, but I wanted to convey that there is a need um to keep with our plan for vehicle replacement in our fleet.

Um average, we need 300 vehicles per year to keep the replacement cycle going and to reduce um repair costs for older vehicles.

Uh an average lifespan of a police car is five years or 100,000 miles, and we have um vehicles like I recent numbers, like 400 vehicles or over police cruisers alone or over a hundred thousand miles, so or over 75,000 miles.

So, like one of the main concerns we just wanted to bring to your attention is that we need vehicles, we need to keep up with the replacement plan.

And while we understand the budget constraints of this year and and the toughness of you know the limitation of the revenue the city is getting, um, we just want to raise awareness and just keep an open open conversation of that need for the police department.

So our fleet charges are what we call character five chargebacks, basically covers our fuel and vehicle repair cost.

This budget was reduced by 10.37 percent based on reductions over the past few years because we have had a newer fleet, our repair costs were down.

Um if we can't replace cars with vehicles, we could expect those repair costs to go up, which could um create a greater need for fleet chargebacks.

The last slide is our budget by program.

This is a pilot program.

Um this is our best guess estimate of where our budget is falling with the different programs that the police department does.

Um this will be tweaked over the next few years as we get into it in an effort to be more transparent and stuff.

Um, we will continue to review, evaluate, assess, um, to make sure that our budgeting by program clearly aligns with the uh chief's priorities.

And with that, I will open it up to questions.

Thank you so much, Chief.

Anything uh no, just going back to character two and what some of the things we purchased were uh vests, ummunition, yeah, uniforms for new hires, um, toilet paper, sanitizer, those type of things.

Thank you, Chief.

Councilmascary.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm just curious on the um special events and overtime.

Are any of the major players helping you at all?

The MD500, cold spacers.

Is there any fee right incurred right now for them?

Uh there's no direct fee that I'm aware of, but uh I I uh am aware that there is some money that flows back to the city from the CIB through one of the one of the taxes that uh maybe maybe OFM or someone can answer that question, but I'm told that some flows back in from somewhere.

I'm glad you got to not but not every event.

Yeah, I am I'm glad you're getting money for the escorts.

Um the other question, how many MCAT units do we have?

I'm sorry, one more time.

MCAT units.

Uh there's one per district and then one extra one on uh Northwest, so a total of help me with the math at seven.

And what are their hours?

Um their hours are from about six in the morning to about six thirty at night.

Okay, they're not covering the evening at all.

No, uh our that what we found is that the greater need is during those hours.

That's what the research is telling us, but also we want to continue the uh we want to uh make sure that we have a continuum of care for the person if we can and get them to a facility that's not an emergency room.

Part of the reason why we wanted to create NCAT and we had originally was the impact was our uh the uh paramedic was to uh was to divert people as much as we could from emergency departments.

All right, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Counselor.

Luna Mowry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and like I saw by saying thank you, Chief, for being here this evening.

Thank you for your team for being here as well and the brave men and women that serve our city every day.

And uh I think you said it best in saying they run towards the chaos and violence and uh when many are running away.

So thank you for everything you do for the city to keep us safe.

Thank you.

Um one thing I was curious on.

I believe in the past we've had the historical chart of staffing and seeing to see like where we were at five, ten years ago compared to now.

I didn't see that in this this uh this presentation.

So if we could get a copy of that, I'd just I'd be interested to see.

Um I was curious how it's fluctuated over the years and where we're kind of stacking up in previous in comparison in comparison to previous years, especially now that we've had the uh raise that you talked about to see how we're doing compared to even last year.

Yeah, I we can get that to you.

It might have been in the budget introduction um PowerPoint, but uh we will we can get that to you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Uh I don't have my budget book with me tonight, is uh left in my car, but um I wanted to ask too about the you said the the need for cars.

Um and one thing I remember when we started doing the car and getting the new cars was that it also helps with retention and attracting talent.

Um given that we're doing such a good push to retain and attract talent to the to the IMPD.

Do we see this as being a potential also another another potential reason for uh a roadblock or a hardship to being able to retain and uh attract talent?

Yeah, I mean we've heard from from officers that have left through their inner exit interviews about you know better equipment cars and other agencies around um Indianapolis.

So it is a potential hazard, but we also want to make sure that our officers can get from A to B, they can get to you when they need help.

I mean, there were times in the past where we were driving cars with holes in the floorboards.

The Crown VIX, although built like tanks, uh uh we we we ran the wheels off of them.

These cars that were that that are built now don't last as long, just they're not built the same way.

I mean, you get in a front-end accident on one of these cars, and you pretty much can total it.

Uh so you know we were tasked with coming up with a five-year replacement plan.

We came up with that plan, we had it very creative by financing the cars rather than buying them outright, and that's why we were able to buy the number we we have over the last several years.

Uh if we stop that plan, if we stop in that rotation, some chief, whether it's me or someone else is going to have to come back to this council and ask for double the amount of money.

Cars are going to be more expensive two years from now than they are currently right now.

Uh and so there is still a need to do that.

I mean, it's the officer's office.

They're in it eight to twelve hours a day.

Uh we need to provide them with you know uh quality equipment.

So uh it is the only budget request uh in my control that I made this year.

It's the only one, and it was the one it didn't make it into the budget.

So you know, we have a couple hundred cars probably that we're holding on to that need to be sold in anticipation of not having cars next year, uh, which means we'll have to take those to the garage, probably get new tires on some, uh, check the engines and oil changes and all those so that 1.3 million dollars could vanish if we have to put all those back in service.

So there are second and third order impacts of of not continuing that that process.

I I don't see cars as a luxury.

I see it as a necessity to operate a police department with 400 square miles to police.

Uh so uh that's just my two cents, but you all uh control that and uh I just provide the facts.

I appreciate that because one of the things I'm curious was uh uh you may have said it, but how much was the request that you said was denied?

I think it it would have been a loan payment of approximately 1.5 million.

I think we could have two million.

Two million.

I look at this budget as uh in totality uh uh throughout the whole enterprise at 1.8 billion, two million seems like a drop in the bucket when we're talking about the efficacy of you having in your officers being able to do their job and do it safely and in a manner that's gonna also, like you said, help cut down cost with the respect to the repairs.

So to the effect of what OFM may be able to do or what even this body could do to amend your current budget to just include that, I think needs to be done.

Uh we've seen in the past with IFD and I see Chief Malone is still back there.

Um they've had a similar schedule of uh forecasting when they're going to replace apparatuses and that they're they were able to keep a lot of their equipment up new and uh refreshed.

And uh I I do worry about the we've seen what happens when we pause something with public safety.

Um what was it probably 10 to 15 years, 10 to 12 years ago when uh Mayor Ballard had put a pause on hiring and we we are still recovering from that.

I don't want to see us go into a similar situation with our equipment that we're giving you folks to do your job.

We don't need to be handcuffing you when it comes to your equipment because that like you said, that's their office, that's where they're doing their daily job.

And to the extent that we can make this right, I hope the city, the administration, OFM, some whatever party can come and get involved and rectify this situation and make it to where we can get something on the table to amend your budget to include that.

So thank you.

Thank you, counselor.

Councillor Renee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman and uh Chief.

Uh thank you for being here, and uh thank you to the men and women of the Annapolis Police Department, uh particularly those who are uh serving the community uh out in the districts uh at the moment.

Certainly the white shirts here and the blue shirts as well.

It's nice to see you and uh we appreciate your time this evening uh and what has been a long uh evening and day, I'm sure for most of us.

Uh you know, Chief, I've heard it said many times for many people that a police department can only be as effective as the community it serves allows it to be.

And I think that's true vice versa.

And I think that from a counselor, I can amend that to say that a police market apartment can only be as success successful as the city it serves allows it to be.

And I'm very proud of the fact that this council has, I think, done a fantastic job with the way that it has funded public safety in the last handful of years, made substantial investments as we thought about recruiting and retention uh in a whole totality of issues for officers uh and uh in our our distinguished civilian staff.

And I've always been really proud of the police department's budget.

I really have never had anything where I thought that it lacked uh significantly.

But I have to tell you that I really do have a big problem with the way that this fleet issue has been handled.

And I would say similar uh comments that uh Leader Maori has made.

All of the money that we've invested in recruitment and retention, I think is in some aspects jeopardized by such a move.

And I think that if you would look at the long-term impact, I think it ends up actually costing us more money and more resources in the future.

And I would really insist that those who crafted the budget revisit the budget and see how they can make better the fleet program.

Is Leader Mowry noted, we know what happens, particularly on the police department when there are freezes.

We're still catching up today.

And to put pause on such a program that has been successful, I really find challenging to understand.

I would just say that uh several years ago, and and I know that my count my c colleagues would love for me to go into a story here at uh 820 at night, so I will make it at least a short one.

But but I remember when I went on a uh right along several years ago on the Southwest side, I had a young officer had been on the department just uh just a few years.

Uh what a wonderful law enforcement professional he was.

And uh I I didn't know what to wear.

You know, it tells you you know how you should dress, and so I wore jeans and uh and a pull over and it was a relatively hot day, but I assumed I was getting in a vehicle and riding along in air condition.

I was not.

It had no air condition.

And I I asked the officer why that was the case, and you know, he said that he had been having some challenges.

It was an older car, and he told me the challenges that exist with taking it to the mechanic and waiting for it to be serviced, et cetera, et cetera.

And so that was kind of on my mind on the ride along.

And uh I uh specifically remember a call came out for a domestic uh dispute issue, and uh we went to go uh respond, and the car shut off.

Just died right there in the neighborhood.

And and I thought, damn.

If that would have been something even more serious, I can't imagine.

So it speaks to the critical importance of making sure that our officers have the necessary tools that they need.

I can't think of anything or officer officers use more than their vehicles.

Number one, and number two, that is their office.

I mean, we we I think probably all take pride in our offices and our space, and we want nice offices and clean offices and well-functioning offices.

That is their office.

So I would just implore those uh in city government who can revisit this to really visit it in a way that can be revised before we pass the budget to at least make some attempt to correct what I think is a big mistake.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor NA.

Councilor Perkins.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um also want to echo what my colleagues shared.

Thank you, Chief, uh, for your leadership in the city.

Uh, and thank you to your officers that work uh every day in very dangerous situations sometimes uh to keep our our city uh protected and safe.

Um and so I want that to to echo throughout this chamber um and I want the general public to to know that that we do appreciate our police officers' chief.

I've shared with you uh that I do believe that you are the right chief for the right season uh to lead this apartment, and that's reflected in some of the numbers that you shared.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, I have a number of questions, and so I'm going to ask.

I know it's late.

Um I have a number of uh items that I wanted to ask.

And Chief, you're going to help me out a little bit uh by shortening the answers.

Um and so I'm going to talk a little bit about the the uh settlement payments, uh a question about civilian staffing out-of-town investments, the MOU, um, and a little bit about the the Go Board.

Uh first question.

Let's do two or three and then we'll come back to you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Uh I hope you give me a little bit of time tonight.

Uh Chief, uh, we have seen a decrease in police action shooting since last year.

Uh this is encouraging.

Uh, what would you attribute this decrease to and how do you keep it lowered?

Uh you know, really uh in most cases our officers respond to the threat that's in front of them.

So uh I can't give you a pinpoint any specific reason.

Um maybe the general decline in in crime and violent crime across the city is impacting uh that that number.

Uh but I can't I can't pin uh one particular thing down on the on that.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Um we want to see that continue and and whatever it is that that's happened and need to continue to happen to reduce that.

Um can you tell us how much uh budget did you you spent last year for civil suits against the department?

We asked this question last year during a budget process, and I don't think I got a number last year.

That that is processed through the office of corporation counsel, so I don't have that number.

Okay.

So that wouldn't come from you.

Is that something that someone from your staff could get to to me or to I'm sorry?

I said we could find out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um we talked a little bit about uh major events um happened in the city and the fact that uh IMPD stands up whenever we have a major event.

How much money does IMPD spend contracting officers from outside the force to do roles like traffic control or major events like Indy 500 or All-Star Game?

Outside of IMPD?

Yes.

Uh I can't give you a tracking number.

Um usually the agencies that assist uh are Indiana State Police, Marion County Sheriff's Office for our our our events in Indianapolis, if uh an organization like the Capital Improvement Board at LucasOil or uh Gambridge hire officers to work inside those facilities that's done through their contracts and they could be from all over the state of Indiana.

Thank you.

Uh last question, uh Mr.

Chair, before I I release my time.

Yeah, but I asked you a question in private and I'll just ask it publicly uh shared with you on Monday.

Uh the question about the MOU that was uh signed uh in terms of um guaranteeing the the minimum number of officers uh to hire around I think 14 1743.

Yes, 1743.

Um ask you about the question about how that became um a part of the contract, um, and at what point um was the council informed of that uh because that information was not shared with me until uh the day the butt the night before the budget was released that that there's a minimum number.

And to tie to that uh uh chief, as you're responding to that question, uh some question about kind of the relationship with the minority police officer association um and what role uh and how are they empowered to represent officers uh and their voices within the department?

Uh I am not a party to the negotiations, so I can't tell you how that MOU came about.

It is an MOU.

Uh I know it would that number was also funded and um in the last labor agreement, whether it was an MOU or in the actual contract, I can't tell you than the previous one.

This one is my understanding that it's an MOU.

I'm not party to that contract.

That's between the administration and the FOP.

As far as the minority police officers association is concerned, I uh if they have concerns, they bring those to me.

Uh we have had regular uh meetings in the past, those meetings have have gone off, not because I I'm not willing to meet with anyone from that organization.

I'm happy to meet any time.

Uh the official bargaining uh organization for the officers of the INPD is FOP Lodge 86.

Um, but I I'm my office as with all of you is open to anybody any time.

Uh there's some questions and some concerns whether or not the members of that um uh organization is allowed to uh to meet and still be treated as if they're going to FLP meeting.

Some questions around that.

I'm not sure what where those concerns come from.

It's never been brought to me as being an issue.

I had a meeting with the vice president, and I would made it clear that uh they work that out amongst their supervisors and go to those meetings.

I have no problem with that.

Okay, I'll follow up.

Thank you.

There's been no no official grievance from the president of that organization to me.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Counselor.

Councillor Boots.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you, Chief.

Um, just a couple of brief questions.

Um you're talking about revenue on slide 20, and you talk about ordinance violations.

Are those can you just clarify are those civil violations that someone might incur or be um charged with via BNS, or is that an ordinance?

No, it's alarm ordinance violations on that specific um court fines and fees are where the other fines or violations would be because those are passed through the courts will be issue traffic tick tickets and whatnot.

Um, but on that specific part, it was specifically referencing alarm violations.

Okay.

And then you talked about um on slide 25 that a hundred and eighty-four vacancies fund the overtime.

Yes.

Right now, um those vacancies will fund overtime or additional recruits.

Um realistically, I think we can hire between 120, 150 recruits depending on the applications and what we can run through the academy.

Anything that is not hired um for personnel or any funding that will be used to hire personnel will be used for overtime.

And I just want to say that anything that is approved in character one has to stay in character one.

Um so if we end up having savings at the end of the year, um, we would have to come back to council to request a change in character to move those to fund other things.

Sure.

Just to clarify though, you mentioned what about the other 116 remaining vacancies?

Where is that funding directed?

You because there's 300 vacancies, you say 184 fund overtime.

What about the remaining 116?

Oh, 120 for recruit classes and 40, 30 to 40 being hired in December of 25, which will be budgeted 100 percent in 26.

For recruiting and personnel?

Recruit new actual recruits.

So 30 recruits still to hire this year, which we paid for in 26, an additional 120 recruits at a minimum in 2026.

So the remaining, you take those those two numbers from the three, whatever, and then the 1870 is what's used for the overtime.

Got it.

And then finally, um just to piggyback on what counselor Perkins' line of questioning.

Um the security for the Indy 500, for example.

Um, because there are security and police officers and traffic control all over Marion County.

And you'll see uh a police cruiser from Bargersville, another one from Martinsville, another one from Lebanon, Indiana.

Who is funding those positions?

Is that 500?

You probably won't see those at the 500.

You will see those at Colts Games and Colts uh Pacers Games for sure, potentially Indians.

Those are funded through those organizations, either the CIB or the Pacers themselves or the Indianapolis Indians.

Pay that pay an off-duty hourly rate to those those officers who work inside those facilities.

Okay, but who pays for for the 500?

I just see you know, hundreds of extra officers all over the county.

All over the county.

I I don't know that you can relate that directly to the Indy 500 all over the county.

Now at Speedway, we we have about 400 officers that are out there.

Now individual suite owners or uh persons that work for the track may hire an officer to work inside their suite or inside the pagoda somewhere, but that's not that has nothing to do with the uh the police department.

Okay, so we are not funding all those additional officers for the 500.

We fund over 400 officers on race day, uh, an additional group of officers on parade day, on carb day, on practice days, on qualifying days, uh, any uh the mini marathon that's IMPD is funding all those.

Yeah.

And there's no reimbursement though of IMPD for any of those positions.

I don't know of any uh re reimbursement fund from Indianapolis Motor Speedway to uh the City of Indianapolis for our services.

Right.

Thank you.

Council McCormick.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um quick question and sort of a comment.

Um on slide 10.

Um we're talking about the violence reduction, and I just want to clarify and make sure 2021 to 2024 is full year, 12 months, and then 25 is year to date.

Right?

Let me get to slide 10, I'm sorry.

Yep, no worries.

Not as fast as you.

I had it, I was holding it, so yeah.

Uh yeah, I believe that that that is year-to-date numbers.

If I'm looking at the totals, that would make sense that it's year-to-date numbers.

So 21 through 24 is year to date.

Yeah, I believe so, right.

Or was full calendar year.

Full calendar year.

Oh, those are full calendar year?

I think so.

I'll have to check on that.

I I think that that's probably uh that's not probably not correct.

Okay, yeah, I feel like I think I think it is year to date, but I'll have to I'll have to check.

Okay, yeah.

So just looking at that, like the statistics and the percentages and stuff, like what we have left in three and a half months, wondering doing the math on those.

So, yeah, if you could clarify that.

And then um murder for sure is the uh end of the year.

Okay.

Um, and then my other item would be sort of um along with what Leader Maori and Councilor Ne mentioned, you and I had a conversation about the vehicles.

I spent a lot of time in my office.

Um, and if I had holes in my floor or was burning up, you know, it'd be a problem, right?

Didn't have air conditioning.

Um, but we talked about it, so like as far as what the need is and what it does for our recruitment and our retention and morale, dollar-wise.

So the ask was so just to go over this, make sure because I don't have the numbers in front of me.

It was two million dollars you said is the ask for the loan, right?

Like, or for the to lease the cars.

But we have cars we would sell.

What's approximately we might get back from selling those vehicles?

Yeah, uh anywhere between 200 and 300,000 dollars.

Okay.

It depends on the market.

So now we're at like 1.75.

Um, and then the extra maintenance that it would cost for the vehicles that we have.

There's a cost there that is potentially gonna go up.

Um what I'm wondering is what's the delta if we want to ask the administration or budget folks, OFM, to look what's that delta that we're really asking for, right?

What would we don't need an increase in two million?

We need an increase in one point whatever.

Um, and so uh so I want to clarify that like that's sort of what it is.

There's a plus and a minus with this conversation.

Um I don't need to have it now, but I think as we have this conversation, it continues.

It sounds like it might that the number's not maybe as far as we think it is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor.

Counselor Perkins.

Uh I'm sorry, Councillor Bain first, and we'll go back to Perkins.

Counselor Bain.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Chief, and your team for the presentation.

Um I always say in my experience, the men and women of IMPD are the most professional and patient people uh I've ever been around.

It's definitely a um a calling that I believe God puts on your life to be an IMPD officer, and they're a blessing to our community.

Something that I have asked the court system when they've been here and the prosecutor as well.

And I think this ties directly into retention, recruitment, officer wellness, and we hear the term all the time.

The revolving door of criminal justice.

When I talk to officers, they say, you know, I arrest the same person three or four times over a weekend.

Somehow they keep getting out.

Do you hear feedback from officers along those lines?

What's your experience with that?

And what is your interaction like with the prosecutor's office, the court system?

Do you think that things are falling through the gap somewhere?

I do hear that feedback from our officers routinely.

In fact, that's one of the you know the biggest complaints that we get.

However, uh my relationship with prosecutor Mears is is I believe you have to ask him how he feels about me, but I think we have a great relationship.

And I think that my relationship with the Judge Rothenberg and others in the courts is good.

I uh have frank conversations with both of them when necessary.

Publicly, I think the community wants to see its law enforcement uh and criminal justice partners to something I consider both of them partners.

They may not feel the same way about us uh working together for the public good.

And my message to our officers routinely is we have to focus on what we do and control what we do.

Do we make the right do we ask the right questions when we go to arrest somebody?

Do we write good reports and probable cause affidavits?

Are we preparing ourselves to testify in court before a jury or a judge?

Are we doing our part to make sure that the prosecutor has a strong case?

Uh, that a jury that a jury believes us and that a judge wants to hand down a sentence.

So I focus on that as much as possible.

Um there's no doubt that every single criminal justice uh entity in the spoke could do things better.

I mean, anybody that comes in here before you and says that they're doing everything perfect and they can't possibly do anything better, um, probably isn't being truthful.

There's things we could do better, there are things that our prosecuting partners could do better, both at the state and federal level, and there's certainly things that the that the judges could do better.

So I see my job as being a person who is uh uh that representative of our officers to those entities to try to find solutions that work for uh the entire system.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor.

Counselor Perkins.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I'll make a comment and and then ask a question of the chief.

Um I have stated in this chamber over and over again that I believe that our uh budget is a moral document.

Uh it reflects our priorities.

Um and I'm hearing the conversation about uh the gap of 1.72 million dollars for to continue program in terms of of police vehicles, and I too believe uh that the offices deserve uh an office that works that does not have hole in the bottom.

Uh but it's also for us to be mindful that public safety currently occupies 40 percent of our budget, right?

Um we have heard from a number of offices to come in that falls on a public safety and the collective bargain and agreement to see how we've had to adjust 2025 to meet the demands of the bargain and bargain and agreement, plus those departments like IMPD with an additional 2.4 percent increase.

All right.

So we have a mid-year increase because we had to meet the bargain and agreement, plus an additional increase, and it was shared with us that the ask across the enterprise in preparation for this budget process was a reduction from most departments.

So we are reducing some departments while we have seen an increase as a result of collective bargaining and additional increase.

And so I want to to kind of put that out there.

Uh Chief, have you seen an increase in enrollment uh since we have signed off on the collective bargaining agreement uh which has been uh highlight from us for earlier this year?

Uh the last testing session, we had uh more people show up than we anticipated and had to find an auxiliary room uh in one of the days, and so that's a positive sign we want to keep that moving forward.

We have a new physical fitness test that will take effect next year that we think could help us push the needle even further.

Okay.

Uh thank you for that.

My last statement that I'll make, Mr.

Chairman, before uh I relinquish the microphone is that our public challenge uh public safety challenges are not about shortage of public safety officers, right?

It's about systems that we decide to neglect to fund rather than really speaking to the root causes uh that's demonstrating some of the violence that we're seeing across our city.

Um again, I I am so appreciative of of all of our police officers and and what they do for our community to keep us safe.

Uh but I want us to keep the big picture in mind uh that we address in root causes so that our officers can be safe uh and our community can be safe.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, officers, for the work that you do.

Thank you, Counselor.

Thank you, Councilor.

Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um as always, first thing I want to do is is thank um thank you, Chief.

Thank your staff.

Um every interaction I have is always phenomenal.

Um every district commander I've had in my districts have been phenomenal.

Um and it's because of your leadership that I believe that it remains that way.

Uh public safety is certainly whatever the cost is, whether it's 40 percent or more, I'm sure it's here, and certainly 40 percent or more than 40.

Uh, public safety is the number one priority of our city.

So if it takes 45, 46 percent, whatever it is, that's the most important thing to do.

Um and from what I've seen tonight, I am very disappointed in in what we're funding in our elevation grants.

If we were looking for money to fund vehicles, uh I've found it tonight.

It's that simple.

Um but I'll tell you something else that it, you know, it I get all kinds of phone calls, whether this committee believes me or not, but I really do.

I had one literally walking into this building today, and I didn't, and it was it wasn't I'll keep it short.

Uh it was a a victim of uh the father of a victim from the canal shootings that happened, I think, back in July.

He was just expressing his frustration.

For 45 minutes, he expressed his frustration to me.

Uh essentially not about your staff by any means.

He was extremely grateful for all the work you do and was actually very frustrated for what IMPD goes through in terms of uh what Councilor Bayner is referring to as this revolving door where officers are keep arresting people over and over again.

He was mentioning um the criminal in this case was arrested at the age of twelve um for armed robbery, and it just went and then started shooting in a whole laundry list of history of crime, and you guys kept on sending them in jail.

He kept on coming back.

And his problem, his frustration that he put inside of me today, is simply with the prosecutor's office, and that there is no fear in the city of Indianapolis for criminals that if they're gonna get arrested, they're gonna go to jail.

And what the point he made to me was very clear is that until that fear is instilled in those criminals and they start dissipating from Indianapolis, it's gonna be really hard in a matter of our funding at 40 percent, 45 percent.

You keep putting them in jail, your staff keeps putting them in jail.

But until we actually send those guys to jail and girls and and females to jail for a long time, uh the message isn't gonna change.

So uh I'm always happy to support everything that you guys are doing.

I think um you certainly should have the money for the cars, right?

And if there's something this council wants to do about it, we can look at underspend.

There's always underspend at the end of this year, and if we want to move it over there, we can.

We don't have to wait for the city to do something or the legislative body.

We've got the ability to do it.

Um so we'll keep talking on that.

That comes to admin of finance very soon.

So if anybody wants to be a part of amendment, I'm happy to draft it up.

I'm getting pretty good at it.

So happy uh to be supportive and thankful for everything that everybody here does.

Thank you, Councillor.

Counselor Bain.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Just wanted a quick point of clarification for everyone that IMPD is less than 25% of our budget.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councilor Perkins.

Public safety is more than 40% of the budget.

Thank you, Councilor Brown.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you, Chief, and all of your staff, of course.

I do have a couple questions.

Um, number one, I want to thank you for your statement about uh cooperation with ICE and federal authorities that has been a gigantic concern in my district.

Um yeah, I I did want to bring something up, and I have brought this up with you personally.

Uh one thing I want to commend you for is you are the fastest to respond to me out of any department head, out of any uh you know, deputy mayor, anybody, and I thank you for that.

When I reached out to you June 11th, with a constituent concern that the flock cameras that you have in police cruisers were being used to help assist ICE, you took that very seriously.

That same day you reached out to the CEO of Flock, who told you that there, according to you, that there were no federal contracts happening.

On August 26th, uh another constituent actually brought to my attention that there's a news story that the flock CEO actually had what they called pilots.

So they weren't federal agreements, but they were pilots, and those flock cameras were indeed, including from Indianapolis, it looked like in the article, feeding data to ICE.

So what I mentioned to you in a private email on August 26th, which I'm repeating here, is that to me that I would read that as deception from the CEO that that answered your questions when you had those concerns.

And so I have real issues with spending our tax dollars, continuing to fund technology run by a company that that was that deceptive to you personally.

So I just want to make that statement.

I asked you then can you offer me and my constituent any assurances that this data is being protected from being shared with federal agencies both now and in the future.

I ask you a lot of questions.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but I did not get an answer to that, so I'd like to ask you here.

Council Council Brown, he's already addressed the issues with ICE in his uh opening statement, so uh chief wants to, but we already addressed the issues with ICE and his um he made a statement earlier, so you have another question.

Yeah, I'm I can I'll I'm happy to answer that question.

So I I don't believe that the the Flock CEO is being deceptive.

I don't believe that.

Uh I didn't respond to the email.

I tried to call you at least two times, and we never connected.

Uh I checked our list today.

There is no uh connection.

We we decide who we share our data with here in Indianapolis.

And their ICE, FBI, DA, ATF, none of those agencies are on uh that list.

Um I I don't know about the uh what whatever whatever that article, I wasn't even familiar with the news source where that came from.

Uh but I did get a uh contact which I was going to share with you for Flock themselves and their governmental uh people for you to ask every question you wanted to ask about uh whatever happens in other parts of the country.

I can only answer what what what Indianapolis uh has, and I uh I I confirmed with our people again this afternoon.

I confirmed with him over the phone that we did not share with uh with Homeland Security or ICE or DEA ATF our data.

I appreciate that.

I I did have an additional question, Mr.

Chairman, um, if that's all right.

Thank you.

Uh from my understanding, uh following up on the line of questioning about the MOU for 1,743 officers.

I know that's with the FOP, that's not with you directly.

In last year's budget conversation, you mentioned that most of that money went to overtime.

It sounds like that's still is true today.

As somebody who's gone out to Post Road and has gone through Hersheyville in the training, um, I have real concerns about officers working substantial amounts of overtime.

Uh I don't think it's fair to the officers.

I don't think it's fair to the city to put us in.

I mean, I wouldn't want a long haul trucker behind the wheel for too long, and there's federal regulations about that.

I I wonder, do we have any kind of data analysis about uh officer-involved shootings being connected to overtime?

It's I mean, it's a very stressful job.

I feel like it's unfair to anybody to ask officers to to make up for hundreds of people not being not you know having those jobs.

Uh counselor, I I I also share your concerns about ensuring that we don't work our overwork our officers and and that they don't end up making a bad decision that harms a community member are harms themselves.

We recently have a had created a dashboard that allows us to look in almost sort of real time about where the overtime money uh is going.

Um and we have policies in place and we rely on our supervisors to track that.

Unfortunately, some of the things that we don't have a lot of control over at this moment that we're in the process of uh working on is off-duty employment.

We have rules in place, but then monitoring monitoring it is poses a little more uh problem.

We since we enter our information into a computer system internally, a lot of that doesn't happen for officers at work, you know, at Gainbridge or somewhere else, right?

So uh we're working on a process to better track that.

But I mean I share those concerns, but uh I'm happy to listen to anyone in this room in the community to tell me what you want us to stop doing.

Uh because the those runs, the million runs of call are you know, several hundred thousand runs that come in, they're continuing to come in.

People call 911 more than ever for many things that probably shouldn't even get a police officer for.

Uh the events keep coming.

Next year we have uh you know the final four.

That's at least four days that I had to cancel already for our officers next year, and it's September of 25 that comes in 26.

Although we think that event is going to be more like 10 days than four days.

Uh those things are continuing to come.

We continue to invest in in downtown and other places.

So I'm happy to have that conversation.

You all tell me you don't want us to investigate A, B, C, and D.

We'll stop doing, we'll transfer those officers to where they need to be transferred to, whether it's special operations or whatever.

That we're getting to the point where that may happen anyway.

Uh but the the bottom line is if we don't staff our districts, officers are going to get hurt because they don't have backup.

Community members are going to get hurt because you don't get there fast enough.

So there is no winning uh you know equation I can give you right now, other than we need staffing.

We need officers to want to work here.

It's very difficult to get cops to work in an urban uh environment.

It's tough, it's busy.

It's uh you can make the same amount of money somewhere else.

You can have nice facilities and good cars and all the things that you may never use in your car, but you have it.

Uh and and reality or not, the perception is that officers are supported in other places more than they are in this county, whether it's by elected officials or the community.

I think we have tremendous support in this in uh for this police department in the city.

They don't always hear it.

You know what they're gonna hear shortly is they'll hear people probably not say very nice things about it.

That's what will be on the news.

All right.

Sometimes that's what you all listen into, listen to and hear to make your decisions, whether it's on Twitter on here that can be produced by bots or actual people.

So those are real concerns for officers.

What's going to solve this is continued support, putting our money where our mouth is about what our what our priorities are, because I've had conversations with pretty much everyone in this room who calls me about a public safety concern, and I get on it immediately, or that it's cars parked the wrong way on Michigan and New York Street or some other issue that you all report to.

I'm responsive, and so are our officers.

Those things stop if we don't have cops.

Uh, and I don't want that to stop.

I want to continue to provide this city which deserves the best police service anywhere in the country, and they get it right now.

Uh, but I am concerned about what the future looks like.

I I appreciate that, Chief.

I I did have one constituent conversation today that he wanted me to bring up that does kind of answer one of your questions about like what should we stop doing?

And I know this is probably an anecdote, but I have heard a couple different versions of the story from constituents, which was uh he lives near 10th street near the gas station at 10th and rural.

Uh a car hit the building that he owns.

He called it in.

It was an emergency, the person got out, ran away.

Um it took 45 minutes for officers to arrive, which I understand you have to triage, but he said that when they arrived, eight different police cars arrived when there wasn't anyone on the scene and there wasn't any urgent damage.

And so I I'm sure that's an anecdote.

I don't, I'm not saying that that's the standard response, but it I have had multiple constituents complain to me about like way more officers showing up to a scene than seems to be required.

And I know you want to keep everyone safe.

I do too.

I don't want anyone to get hurt.

This was during the day.

Um it it to this constituent.

I I don't know the details, I'm only hearing one side of the story, but you know, that's something that might be considered.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Counselor and we'll keep this very short.

I just want to reiterate uh the issue with the fleet, uh, which is I really do think that there's an opportunity to bridge the gap in some way.

Maybe it's not a full uh two million dollars, but maybe it's half, uh, but just doing something to try not to lose uh what I would say is momentum.

Uh and the second thing I would say is I know the issue with special events has come up, uh, and I and I happen to agree.

You know, we went through uh BNS, business and neighborhood services, you know, and they showed us where you know rates and things hadn't been changed uh in their agency in like 40 years.

And you know, one of the things we did was we approved uh the rate changes and that brought them up to today's standards.

And so I I don't know when uh the special events uh you know agreement or deal originated.

I don't know if it's been 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years, but I think it'd be worth at least kind of taking a look at what the agreement is or isn't, uh understanding what the capital improvement board uh might be getting uh directly, and uh, you know, I mean I I think at minimum we should at least be putting in a tip jar.

I mean, seriously, I mean it's kind of crazy.

I don't it just just it's at face value.

I think it deserves.

Not the speedway, Chief, but there's uh it's cult season.

But I mean, but but that's kind of a funny thing to say, but but my point is uh there there's a there's a weird thing uh to me that uh there's no direct contribution back to the police department, and and maybe there's a good reason for that, but I'd like to find out what that is.

Thank you, counselor.

Uh Ms.

Clerk, you have names of those that signed up to want to speak publicly to the uh Chiefs 2026 budget.

Thank you.

Read the first three names, please.

Yeah, Audrey Jones.

Anthony Harvey and Carolyn Higgerbotham.

One more time, uh Ms.

Clerk.

Sorry.

Audrey Jones, Anthony Harvey, and Carolyn Higgabottam.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Audrey Jones, and I'm with Black Church Coalition.

There is less of us here tonight uh than what was here last week from our leaders.

Uh, but do not get it confused.

We are not any less committed to holding IMPD accountable.

The difference between last week and this week is that Chief Bailey has always maintained consistent communication with our movement.

Thank you for that.

We do not need to bring a large crowd to engage him, but that does not mean that we are not frustrated with the budgeting process for IMPD.

A major majority of this budget is going to staffing, a budgeted number defined by the mayor and FOP.

Neither of those parties are part of this meeting tonight, this hearing tonight.

We are frustrated that the physical decisions about this department are made behind your back.

We are urging this committee to do more than just pass a budget without demanding more on how we arrived at 1700 officers.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am.

Your name for the record, sir?

Anthony Harvey, and I'm with the Black Church Coalition.

We want to respond to the proposal to disempower and eliminate responsibilities from the General Orders Board.

The FOP and others have been spinning a narrative that implies the GO Board is somehow related to a downtown shooting and questioning the commitment to respond to crime.

This is a straw man argument of folks who do not understand the GO board's purpose and why it exists.

I helped organize to create it in its current form, so let me share.

This board was also a commitment towards building trust and transparency for law enforcement from law enforcement.

The fact that there is even a conversation on this proposal communicates a waffling from the committee on its commitments to policy and community trust.

This committee, this committee is beholden to the citizens, not the FOP.

Your community is not asking for this.

I doubt the rank and file officers are asking for this.

Let's not allow fake public safety arguments to take up our time.

Let's continue this business and focus on the real work.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, sir.

Good evening.

I'm Carolyn Higginbotham.

I live in District 6.

Uh, and um I organize with the Indy Action Coalition, which, along with the Black Church Coalition and Validus Movement, are part of Live Free Indiana.

And I want to be really clear that we are not here as community versus police.

We are here because the manufactured fiscal crisis our city is in requires hard choices and difficult solutions.

The budget proposed tonight does not include the right choices to challenge financial realities.

This budget has a massive increase in dollars to meet an unrealistic staffing goal, which will ultimately just go into overtime pay to work an already exhausted workforce, which is not fair to our officers.

Instead, we can choose to invest in responses that take the load off of officers.

We can commit and fund a realistic staffing number and stop being a free security service for Indy's biggest events.

The council's responsibility and call in this moment is to be the fiscal oversight for this city.

This budget is financial malpractice.

The city's finances will get even tighter over the next few years.

Taking leadership now will save the city millions and actually support local law enforcement.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am.

Your name, sir, for the record.

Good evening.

I'm Chris Dorsey.

I'm president and CEO of Disciples Home Missions here in Indianapolis with the Christian Church Disciples of Christ.

Having a public safety system that is over-reliant on just law enforcement officers and a specific number of law enforcement officers that is not attainable sets the city up for failure.

We need to expand public safety officers, non-police crisis response to lower strain on officers, but this budget and the commitments that have been made by non-transparent backroom deals keeps us from making that vision possible.

Instead, we are left with an overworked law enforcement and contracted support that has no real stake in our community.

What we need to know is when this committee and the council will lead and challenge these backrooming processes and make more money to build a whole ecosystem that works and not just sustains a fund that primarily goes to overtime.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, sir.

Additional names, Ms.

Clerk, please.

Noah Lenninger, Abdullah Mohammed, and Johnny Osman.

Thank you.

Noah Lininger with the Indianapolis Party for Socialism and Liberation.

I'll state it plainly.

IMPD does not prevent crime even after wasting millions of dollars on expensive and ineffective boondoggles like data-driven policing or shot spotter or flock cameras.

They don't even solve most crimes after they happen.

According to IMPD's own records, annual reports from 2017 to 2023, fewer than a third of homicides, 15% of robberies, and 9% of sex crimes led to arrests.

Not convictions, arrests.

Mass incarceration isn't the answer, but this illuminates how little IMPD does to address crime, despite Bailey's claims, while taking 1.6 billion dollars in those same years.

Counselors earlier told the Indianapolis Foundation that they have to be sure that every dollar they get is used effectively and is efficient.

But no one demanded the same of Chief Bailey.

You asked the fire department how many firefighters live outside of Marion County.

But why didn't anybody pretending to care about our tax dollars ask how many cops live out in the donut counties racking up miles on their take-home cars driving out to Pittsburgh or Greenfield or Martinsville?

When the PSL shared ideas from residents on our social media for other uses for the 20 to maybe 22 million dollar increase, patrol officer Spencer Widener commented on our post to say, quote, these same people call 911 almost daily, but don't worry, the budget will get cut and they'll wait 36 hours for police to arrive at their home invasion robbery.

That's IMPD's response to community members imagining what else could be done just with the increase to threaten us with refusal to respond rapidly to emergencies.

The PSL says that thuggish mafia-like behavior like that should be punished, not rewarded, and there's no wonder there's community members that disagree.

The PSL organizes for the socialist reconstruction of society which would address these root causes.

We can guarantee the right to work that has a dignified and living wage.

We can end homelessness tonight, seize empty homes, and make housing a human right.

Thank you for your comments.

Anyone else, Ms.

Clerk?

Yes.

Abdullah Mohammed and Johnny Osman.

Are those the final two?

Yes.

Thank you so much.

One more time.

Abdullah Mohammed and Johnny Osman.

Thank you.

State your name for the record, sir.

Uh Johnny Osman.

Uh, thank you for your time.

I wanted to share, or I wanted to ask for a brief moment of silence for Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier today.

He was a husband and father of two.

My name is Johnny, and I actually live very close by.

Uh I've lived in Indianapolis for seven years and downtown for three years.

I sat here a week ago and listened intently to the community, and what I noticed was I didn't hear a single dissenting opinion.

I hear pastors, lawyers, and members of the community invoking the name of Christ or the Constitution, but not once did I hear a single person address the real problems plugging our streets.

Never mind the statistics, downtown crime that we all know go underreported.

I want to walk, uh I can't walk to work without confronting fit and all addicts, harassing women, dodging human excrement, shopping carts piled high, and homeless tents, which by the way, all look brand new in the same colorway.

I have no idea what that's all about.

Uh at night, all I see is juvenile mobs, mass shootings, and overall degenerate behavior.

Um it didn't used to be like this.

A month ago, I witnessed 34 shots ring out from the BP gas station just two blocks away from here, uh, right down the street in one of the only gas stations downtown.

Uh and the real black pill for me was the zero reporting done by any news outlets.

Um our attorney general yesterday said on a podcast that downtown Indy is a hellhole.

Young men like me are getting radicalized every day by what we see on the internet and what we see on our streets, and I believe it's clear that we need more people locked up, not less.

And I believe it's clear that we need more people locked up, not less.

We need more policing, we need harsher sentencing, and we're tired of this revolving door of justice.

We don't care about mental health and rehabilitation initiatives.

We don't care about due process for those in our country illegally, and the reality is the gross majority of violent crimes are committed by a very small group of people, and we should be throwing them in prison.

You know it, I know it, and we all know the DA and prosecutors are letting these offenders back on the streets, and that's called suicidal empathy, and we're sick of it.

Last thing I want to thank all the hardworking men and women from the IMPD that are here today, and I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Uh, additional comments from counselors.

Counselor.

I would just make the point since we're now past the nine o'clock hour, Mr.

Chairman, then I do sincerely appreciate those who did stick around this evening, regardless of what viewpoints might have been shared uh to uh voice their concerns.

I do think it says something that folks did at least um stick out a long meeting and uh wanted to take part in an important budget process.

Thank you, Council.

Final comments, counselors?

Chief, final words, please.

I think I've said enough tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.