Election Board meeting

Indianapolis City-County Council

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Friday, Sept. 6, 2024
2:00 p.m. — 3:00 p.m. EDT

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City-County Building

The Marion County Election Board conducts all elections and administers the election laws within the county.

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Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Indianapolis - IN Documenters Team

Note-taking by Michael Nolan

Marion County Election Board schedules a voting equipment demonstration

View notes

Live reporting by Randy Wyrick

Marion County Election Board schedules a voting equipment demonstration

randy51722 @randyrecoil

Good evening. I'm Randy Wyrick and I'll be live tweeting tonight's City-County Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee.

04:59 PM Sep 4, 2024 CDT

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Good evening. I'm Randy Wyrick and I'll be live tweeting tonight's City-County Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee. @mirrorindy @indydocumenters

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Tonight, agencies will submit their budget proposals to the committee.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters First up is the Metropolitan Services Agency Emergency.

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Their 2025 budget request is $17,494,335, slightly up from last year.

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Their overall budget proposal for 2025 is $17, 494,335.

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Their telecommunicators -dispatchers - handled 83,000 calls during August.

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They average response time when a call came in was between 18 and 24 seconds.

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The goal is to reduce that down to 10 seconds.

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Some of what’s hampering is inexperienced telecommunicators.

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To work as a telecommunicator you have to pass a test and a criminal background check.

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One of the hurdles is for candidates getting downtown to the City-County Building in the middle of the day to take those tests.

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To address that, they're moving toward doing the testing online.

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Candidates must pass a criminal background check, and that also eliminates a few candidates.

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Like many of us, they're understaffed, especially with telecommunicators. Right now, they have 53 open positions.

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MCCOY - the Marion County Commission on Youth - presented its 2025 budget proposal.

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MCCOY is a community youth organization and has been around 31 years.

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Kate Roelecke, program director, said their goal is early intervention to keep youth from becoming embroiled in the criminal justice system.

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Currently, they work with 2,169 youth.

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“We believe that system involvement is the least desirable outcome for our youth. We know prevention works," Roelecke told the committee.

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Prevention saves money and lives, Roelecke said.

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Incarceration and falling into the criminal justice system saves money and lives, Roelecke said.

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Roelecke pointed out the heart breaking irony of presenting her budget request on Wednesday, the day of yet another school shooting, this one if Georgia.

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... this one in Georgia, not if Georgia.

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MCCOY asked the city for $71,500.

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In the Sheriff's Office budget presentation, Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forstal's proposal asked an increase of $11,481,133 over last year.

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Some of that increase is in personnel and equipment in the Criminal Justice Center.

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They've been aggressively pursuing grants to cover some of that, especially seeking aid for people who are suffering from addictions.

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Staffing is also a challenge for the Sheriff's Office. Detention deputies, for example, has a 45 percent turnover rate.

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And changes in federal programs could make millions of those dollars disappear.

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On the personnel side, racial diversity is increasing. African American staffers increased from 35 percent to 40 percent in the past year.

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They work all sorts of job fairs to recruit, They're especially with their partnership with Martin University.

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They make up for some of it by deputies working overtime - more than $1 million last year.

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Upon further review, the MCSO had to spend $6 million on overtime to cover staffing shortages.

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Sheriff Forstal said sometimes deputies work 16 hour shifts.

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For now, the budget is a bit nebulous. The MCSO is still negotiating contracts with employee groups.

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The MCSO has been short-handed for at least the last decade and a half.

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The overall 2025 budget proposal is for $141 million. That would cover 828 staffers. Right now, the MCSO has 801 people on staff.

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Chairperson Christa Carlino adjourned the meeting at 7:05.

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Good afternoon. I'm Randy Wyrick and I'll be live tweeting today's Marion County Election Board meeting. @mirrorindy @indydocumenters

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Chairperson called the meeting to order at precisely 2 p.m.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Director of Elections Patrick Becker covered the preparations for the fall election. That includes several proofreaders, political parties, attorneys, school districts and others.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Vice chair Jennifer Ping explained how candidates are placed on the ballot. It's not alphabetical or arbitrary. State law dictates the order in which candidates appear on the ballot, based on the number of votes received by attorneys general in specific counties.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters They had to proof 1,700 pages of material in preparing the November ballot.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters No, the ballot you'll get in the November general election will NOT be 1,700 pages. That's just total amount of material local election official had to work through.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters They handle school boards, township boards, special elections and many other elections. That's how they get to 1,700 pages of material the have to handle.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters And with that mountain of material climbed, the board voted to approve the 2024 General Election Ballot.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Marion County is home to 642.645 registered voters. Director of Elections Patrick Becker said.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters "We're ready for them all to come to the polls and vote," Becker said.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters You can vote early in several locations around Marion County, including one in each township. Generally, you can vote where you did last spring.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters There are 186 voting locations around Marion County.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters If you have questions, go to . vote.indy.gov

vote.indy.gov

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters They took up an item regarding campaign finance. David Smith, a candidate for Washington County Township Advisory Board, was levied a $1,000 fine. He's asking the fine be waived.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Township advisory boards are required to form a committee if their fundraising is above a certain threshold.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Because the rules and regulations can be confusing, the Election Board voted unanimously to waive the fine.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters While election day is in early November, Secretary Kate Sweeney Bell pointed out that their elections begin on Oct. 20 when they send out the first batch of ballots to people who have asked to vote by mail.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters They've scheduled a public demonstration of voting equipment on Oct. 4. It's open to the public.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters People will be staffing voting locations.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters It turns out that the Taylor Swift concerts in Indianapolis land right in the middle of the election season. The ballot locations are staying open late, to make it easier to access your voting location.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters No who is ineligible to vote gets to vote, Sweeney said.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters That public demonstration of voting equipment is at 3737 East Washington, at the corner of Washington and Sherman. It starts at 9 a.m.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Voter registration ends on Oct. 7. Early voting begins the next day, Oct. 8.

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@mirrorindy @indydocumenters Chairperson Nolita Stewart adjourned the meeting at 2:35 pm.

View thread

Attachments

Election Board Chair Nolita Stewart opens meeting on Sept. 6, 2024 at the City-County Building in Indianapolis.

By Key King 9/6/2024

Director of Elections Patrick Becker explains ballot ratification to election board on Sept. 4, 2024 at the City-County building in Indianapolis.

By Key King 9/6/2024

Vice Chair Jennifer Ping, Chair Nolita Stewart, and Secretary Kate Sweeney Bell prepare to close meeting on Sept. 4, 2024 at the City-County Building in Indianapolis.

By Key King 9/6/2024

Marion County Election Board meets on Sept. 6, 2024 at the City-County Building in Indianapolis.

By Key King 9/6/2024

Marion County Election Board Meeting Agenda for Sept. 6, 2024 in Indianapolis.

By Key King 9/6/2024

Agency Information

Indianapolis City-County Council

See meeting notes for details

www.indy.gov

See Documenters reporting

The Indianapolis City-County Council is the legislative branch of our local government. In addition to adopting budgets, levying taxes, and authorizing financial appropriations to fund city and county operations, the council is responsible for enacting, repealing, and amending local laws. The Council appoints members to boards and commissions that serve the community, and all meetings are open to the public.

Council members