The Real Reason Ballard Vetoed $4.7 Million In Additional Public Safety Funding

Mayor Greg "Public Safety Is Job One" Ballard vetoed today an additional $4.7 million the Indianapolis City-County Council recently appropriated in this year's budget using additional dollars generated from this year's public safety income tax increase to purchase replacement police cars and to spend on repairs of police facilities. Proposal 47 passed on an overwhelming, bipartisan 24-4 vote. Here's the explanation Ballard offered for vetoing Proposal 47 as reported by the Indianapolis Star:

Ballard said the Department of Public Safety never requested the funds and was not consulted before the City-County Council voted 24-4 for Proposal 47 on March 30. The expense also was not considered during recent city budget negotiations, Ballard said in a written statement.

"None of the items addressed in Proposal 47 were included in the budget, quite simply, because no one from the department of public safety asked for any of these items," Ballard said. "(It) represents a complete departure from this commonsense budgeting approach, and, thus, I must veto it."

Ballard said buying the police cars was a waste of money because much of the police fleet is switching to electric cars.

"An appropriation that wasn't budgeted and isn't necessary is nothing more than an irresponsible waste of taxpayer dollars," Ballard said.

A reliable source tells Advance Indiana the back story to Ballard's unexpected veto of Proposal 47, which angered many council members and the FOP. We're hearing Indianapolis lost funding for its Department of Homeland Security grant for the Urban Areas Securities Initiative ("UASI"), which the City relies upon heavily to fund the debacle known as the Regional Operations Center. The ROC has never truly been a regional operations center because it has never comprised the original 9 counties that were supposed to jointly participate in Indianapolis' ROC. Last year, U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks boasted about getting this funding restored for the Indianapolis area after it was lost in 2013 following the Super Bowl in 2012. Well, we're hearing the federal grant has been cut again for failure to satisfy the conditions provided in federal law for receiving the grant money. Thus, Ballard has to pull money from this year's income tax revenue to make up for the loss of the federal grant money to keep the ROC operating.

Fear not, Indy Eleven supporters. Ballard is reassuring his chief benefactor, Ersal Ozdemir, that there will be plenty of city money available for his new $83 million soccer stadium even if state legislation sent to the governor's desk caps the state contribution at $20 million. It's hard to understand why Rod Blagojevich is sitting in a federal prison cell in Colorado for a term of more than 14 years while someone like Ballard who has committed far greater crimes goes untouched by federal prosecutors. Only Joe Hogsett can explain that one to Indianapolis residents. The taxpayers of this city face greater danger with each passing day this man is allowed to remain in office.