By Liz Gelardi
INDIANAPOLIS (July 30, 2014) – Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard unveiled a plan Wednesday that he calls a holistic approach to public safety. It calls for hiring 280 police officers and funding early childhood education.
“We have to change the mix of what we’re doing,” said Ballard.
The proposed public safety plan focuses on three areas: prevention, protection and punishment.
The mayor is once again requesting the elimination of the homestead tax credit. Ballard said eliminating the credit would free up $25 million for early childhood education. Under this plan pre-K programs would receive $50 million total in funding, the rest of the money would come in the form of matching dollars from the state and private partnerships. The mayor has previously called for the homestead tax credit to be eliminated.
The plan also includes a long-term funding solution to hire 280 new IMPD officers. Under the mayor’s plan the public safety tax would be increased to from 0.35% to 0.50%. The mayor’s office said, if both the homestead tax was eliminated and the public safety tax increased, it would cost an average Indianapolis resident an additional $7.16 per month in taxes.
The following is a breakdown of the proposed IMPD hiring plan:
- 2014: 80
- 2015: 90
- 2016: 90
- 2017: 50
- 2018: 50
The local Fraternal Order of Police has been pushing for the city to hire more officers. A bi-partisan task recently studied police staffing levels. It issued a recommendation in in April that called for hiring 500 officers over the next five years. FOP are glad the mayor wants to hire police but frustrated that he didn’t follow the full recommendation.
“He’s the mayor, it’s his decision to make, however it bothers me that we have experts on this commission, we have experts testify at the commission and both the recommendations and the testimony are dismissed,” said Bill Owensby, Fraternal Order of Police President for Lodge 86.
Ballard said his plan is designed to tackle societal problems by investing in preschool and curbing the dropout rate. He said early childhood education is key. He also wants to change the city’s curfew ordinance and launch a regional heroin awareness campaign.
Ballard said police continue to arrest the same people over and over. He’s urging the state to enact mandatory minimum sentences of 20 years for criminals who use guns in their crimes.
The funding plan will be introduced in the City-County Council on Aug. 18.
City-County Council President Maggie Lewis, a Democrat, responded to the announcement with the following statement:
We are encouraged the Mayor has listened to our community and begun to accept the position of the Council Democrats that Indianapolis needs more police officers patrolling our neighborhoods. The issues of adding more police officers and working to solve the public safety crisis in our City are too important for mixed messages and broken commitments. The Mayor and the Council must work together to add more police officers to stem neighborhood violence and reduce the danger that our current officers face every day. The Council Democrats’ top priority is adding more police officers. We must address this crisis first.
However, it is also important that any funding plan for enhanced public safety is fiscally responsible. Since we are only now hearing about the Mayor’s public safety tax plan and have not yet seen the details, we will study it thoroughly, and quickly, to determine if it accomplishes the dual goals of public safety and fiscal responsibility. But we give him credit for finally outlining the framework of a strategy to address the increase in crime and to add more officers. It is imperative that the Mayor works with the entire community, public safety stakeholders and the Council to determine whether his public safety tax plan is the right approach for our City. For our part, we pledge to work with the Mayor and those stakeholders to try to solve this critical public safety problem.