When Good Intentions Equal Bad Public Policy
I am sure somewhere deep down inside, my Democratic friends on the Indianapolis City-County Council have the same hopes for the city as I do, they want one that is safe, vibrant and has a high quality of life. And we all realize those goals are complicated when money is tight. However, one of the first rules of governing is to not make bad matters worse, and by passing an ordinance to take $6 million in Rebuild Indy funds to start a new police recruit class, the Council went down that road.
I recently explained in my weekly NUVO column why all this was a bad idea, so I won’t go into a whole lot of detail here. However, at Monday night’s Council meeting Democrats made a new argument that is just as, or should I say, even more flawed than their original proposition.
They maintained that if the city began a new police recruit class, using Rebuild Indy dollars, the money to pay for continuing classes would be covered by the fact that you will have officers retiring and since they are more experienced officers, the city would be paying less over time, since the new officers won’t be paid as much. They say the city could fill as many as 60 officers with the new class.
Here’s the problem with that logic, in a Twitter exchange at-large Councilor Zach Adamson told me IMPD loses 42 officers a year due to retirement and this would replace those officers. He says the city could replace those 42 with 34 cops and the program is 100% sustainable. But won’t that mean fewer cops on the street? And haven’t Democrats been saying we need more police? So doesn’t all this plan really do is put fewer police on the street and translate into less dollars for infrastructure?
Did I miss something?
There are number of ways we can put more cops on the street and fight crime without touching infrastructure funding.
Public Safety Director Troy Riggs’ is planning to realign IMPD and move up to 100 officers from behind the desk and put them back on the street. And if that’s not enough, the Council could always take some of the millions the Sheriff has overspent in the last 2-3 years buying cars and increasing his staff and use those dollars to put police back on the street without having to touch road money. They could also have certain Black members of the caucus stop fighting the expansion of educational opportunities for their constituents; since education is one of the best ways to fight crime.
There are a number of things the Council can do without having to tap into one time funds to create long-term operating expenses. This way their good intentions can have good results as opposed to more deficit spending and bad fiscal management.
