6/27/2007
Media Contact:
Steve Campbell, [317] 327.3622
Margie Smith Simmons, 327.3690 |
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Mayor sets forth comprehensive plan to fund fight against crime, fix city finances for the long-term
Peterson calls for 100 new police officers
INDIANAPOLIS – Today, Mayor Bart Peterson announced a comprehensive plan to aggressively fight drugs, gangs and illegal guns in Indianapolis, while also fixing some of the city's long-term fiscal problems that have dogged the city for three decades years.
The plan includes hiring 100 new police officers – which including the 200 officers added from 2000 to 2003 and the 137 more patrol officers resulting from the police merger – would bring the number of officers patrolling the streets in 2008 to an all-time, record high.
It also would grow the city's crime-fighting capabilities and criminal justice system to match Indianapolis's stunning growth in the last 20 years.
"Today, I ask you and all the people of our great city to join me in fixing these long-standing challenges – in funding the war against crime to restore our city's well-deserved reputation as a safe city, in guaranteeing the payment of pensions that our retired heroes of public safety earned by placing their lives on the line for decades to protect us, in placing our city's finances on a sound footing for ours and future generations, and in confirming Indianapolis as the city that works," Mayor Peterson said to a crowd at the John H. Boner Center on the city's near Eastside.
The amount of money needed to fund the war against crime is $90 million per year and includes:
- $30 million to pay for enhanced crime fighting expenses and fixes to the criminal justice system, which ended early releases from the jail last year;
- $30 million to fund pensions for city's police officers and firefighters hired before 1977, the problem that threatens the rest of the city's budget;
- $20 million to fund crime fighting initiatives, including the hiring of 100 new police officers and increasing the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's capacity to train new recruits; and
- $10 million to fund new police and firefighter contracts.
"The merger that created IMPD has already resulted in 49 more officers on the streets than the two separate departments provided, a number that will swell to at least 137 by next year," said Peterson. "This is in addition to the 100 new officers that I propose today."
For the city to make these crime fighting investments, an increase of 0.65% in the Marion County income tax rate is needed, which would take the city's current tax rate from 1.0% to 1.65%. Accompanying this increase would be a legally mandated freeze on property tax increases for at least two years by all local government taxing units in Marion County with the exception of schools.
That means a person making:
- $30,000 would pay about $16 more a month, or $195 more per year.
- $50,000 would pay about $27 more a month, or $325 more per year.
- $100,000 would pay about $54 more a month, or $650 more per year.
More information attached.
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