Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson have reached a budget agreement that both sides say will fund public safety and allow the city to live within its means.

The Sheriff originally asked for $111 million, but later reduced that request to $92 million.  Under the agreement the Sheriff  will receive about $86 million, which was Ballard’s original budget request.  However, it will no longer have to directly pay for emergency dispatch and for a net gain of about $8 million, since the department won’t have its budget reduced to pay for the services.

According to City Comptroller Dave Reynolds, dispatch will be paid directly out of the the Marion County Emergency Agency’s budget.    To cover part of that costs city officials say they will use about $3.3 million in additional tax revenue that was discovered due to a clerical error.

At the end of the day, the city will only have about $600,000 left in its overall fund balance.  That number was originally just over $4 million, but the additional MECA costs as well as the additional $2.6 million for the townships assessors reduced that amount.

So while the city is still managing to live within its means, it won’t have much of a life.

Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson may be crying poverty, but from an intial look at his budget someone at the Sheriff’s department likes to spend money like a drunken sailor in a Vietnamese brothel.

As I told you earlier Anderson, requested a $26 million increase over last year’s budget. MCSD spent $84 million in 2007 and was on track to spend $91 million in 2008 and requested more than $111 million in 2009. That amount was cut back to about $85 million. After going through the budget on-line, here’s what I discovered.

Out of that $26 million increase, $17.5 million went to salaries and benefits. $8.889 million was for salaries, $2.2 million went for raises. He only spent $26 million on salaries in 2007, so why would he need $36 million in 2009? Unless he hired a bunch of people and now trying to get you to write checks that he can’t cash?

In addition, in 2008 MCSD only spent $44,000 on hospital supplies. It requested $1.1 million in 2009. That’s a lot of band-aids.

A lot of sheriff’s deputies must need new clothes, because Anderson went from spending $146,609 on uniforms in 2008 to wanting to spend more than $390,000 in 2009.

Someone at MCSD must also be using a lot of paper because printing costs went from just under $11,000 for 2008 to about $193,000 in 2009.

The rumors about Anderson wanting to buy new cars must be closer to the truth than I thought. His vehicle budget went from $11,000 in 2008 to $723,000 in 2009.

Tired? I hope not, there’s still more.

Anderson’s building security budget went from $0 in 2008 to $400,000 in 2009. I feel safer already.

They also must be expecting to get sued a lot over at the jail. They spent $275,000 on settlement payments in 2008 and expect to spend $2.1 million in 2009. I’m definitely practicing the wrong kind of law.

A lot people must also be getting sick over at the Jail too because medical and hospital expenses are going up from $3.02 million in 2008 to $6.2 million in 2009.

And those pesky cars and vans showed up again under capital expenditures. Anderson only spent $114,000 on cars in 2008 and nothing on vans. Those numbers went up to almost $1.7 million for cars and $740,000 for vans in 2009.

I’m sure the Sheriff has a pretty good explanation for all this. I’ll be watching when he testifies at his budget hearing in a few weeks.

By the way, if you think I am pulling this all out of my rear, you can see the numbers here for yourself.

Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson today complained about the more than $5 million in budget cuts his office is facing in this budget.

In an interview this afternoon, Anderson said he first learned about the proposed budget cuts this morning. The Sheriff’s budget went from $91.3 million to $85.7 million. Anderson disputed the argument by the Ballard administration that his budget for the jail costs taxpayer $107 per day per inmate. Anderson said the costs are closer to $57. He said the County jail is more expensive than the private jail because he to harbor more dangerous inmates and those with more health problems.

Anderson also complained about funds being cut from what he called his “law enforcement” division,  saying his men have made more than 1200 warrant-related arrests. Anderson side-stepped any questions about whether he thought the move was political. But he did not mention his office asked for an extra $26 million.

A spokesman for the Mayor’s office said the information given to them by the Sheriff showed a lot of room for efficiencies in the way the jail is run and it is up to the Sheriff to find efficiencies. Marcus Barlow also said no one is immune to cost cutting and it is up to everyone to find efficiencies in their budgets.