INDIANAPOLIS _ The first budget since 2019 without significant federal COVID funding support, the proposed 2024 budget accelerates the city’s momentum, prioritizing key investments in law enforcement, violence reduction, infrastructure, and neighborhoods to make Indianapolis safer and stronger. The total budget is more than $1.5 billion.
Included is the largest IMPD budget in history at $323 million, including increased first-year salaries to nearly $72,000, an 85% increase from 2016 and one of the highest starting salaries in the Midwest. It also includes a 3% raise for veteran IMPD officers, and investment in technology and equipment for IMPD, including dashcams and drones, and an expansion of license plate readers and public safety cameras.
The budget also reflects a continued commitment to community-based violence reduction, including funding to expand the Clinician-Led Community Response program to East District with 24/7 staffing. It includes funding to reach 60 beds at the Assessment & Intervention Center at the Community Justice Campus on the southeast side, representing a doubling of capacity at the 24/7 mental health and substance abuse response facility.
The budget includes funding to support neighborhood infrastructure and pedestrian safety improvements. It also includes $25 million in funding for residential streets, totaling over $100 million for residential streets in the past three years.
The 2024 budget carves out more funds for parks maintenance to build on the historic $80 million grant from Lilly Endowment for parks capital improvements, and funding for public safety cameras in 9 Indy Parks locations.
There is a $2 million in fiscal package for Business and Neighborhood Services to improve alleys, the first designated funding for alleys in recent memory. The budget also funds an anti-displacement pilot program in the Riverside neighborhood to limit the impact of rising assessed values, helping keep longtime neighbors on fixed incomes in their homes.
For more information about the 2024 budget, visit indy.gov/activity/city-and-county-budget