Good evening. I've called to order the meeting of the Community Affairs Committee of the Indianapolis City County County Count City County Council for Tuesday, SEPTEMBER 9th 2025 this time I'd like to introduce my count fellow councilors I would like my fellow council to jurors themselves. Thank you, MR. Chaired Gary Cahill District. 23. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN couple heart represented district 20. Thank you, MR. Chair Kristin Jones representing District 18. Thank Acting chair run gives in District 8. Thanks, MISTER Chair and good evening, everyone. Keep Grace District 9 on the side and I'm Nick Robertson strict for and as was mentioned, the acting chair for tonight, counselor vice PRESIDENT Ali Brown's unable to make it. We are very fortunate tonight to have the director Amanda Idaho Nikal as the presenter tonight. Be going over the 2026 budget
presentation for the Animal Services agency. It's her first one, as is the cfo. And we're very happy to have you guys done. Very grateful to every here look forward hearing about what's going on for the animals are city. Thank you. Thank you. Council Robertson, members of the committee for being here tonight. We're very excited to introduce our 2026 budget nuts. As Nick said, it is my second month at ics as director. And this is James its 4th month. So this get very interesting. The server first time presenting a budget to all of you. We're excited to tell you what our goals are. Our successes and our projects that we have coming up. So I'll go over those things than James will go over. Our proposed 2026 budget our plan to allocate our resources. I do want to say thank you again. You'll have been big advocates for efforts and we look forward to continuing to work with you
guys. So first up will go over. Agency overview the highlight the work that our staff do. We're happy to have a strong asking partnership and operating under a newly negotiate contract. Indianapolis Animal Care Services, Indiana's largest open admission, municipal shelter, providing 24 7 animal control services sheltering Rescue and support services for Indianapolis residents. Each year we respond to thousands of calls involving strays cruelty cases, public safety issues. And we have 4 divisions, admin and finance placement, medical and shelter operations. Just a highlight some of our agency staffing what we do. We are happy again have that strong partnership with asked me. We have 67 and a half current staff members
and with 16 vacant positions, we're strong track record of internal promotions out of 16 managers and supervisors. 13 of those were acs promotions from internal 2 external and one internal city transfer. Employee retention. As can see, right has improved from 38%. That's from AUGUST 2024. To 19% as of JULY of 2025. Increasing consistency and efficiency. This is primarily from harassment contract. Our staff has 100% defensive driving training compliance as well as all employees intended conflict resolution training. Agency staffing. This is our agencies demographics. We have more women in our agency as you can see them and we will continue to work to have an agency that better reflects our community. Number 5,
Harper, programmatic and fiscal successes. Our rescue transfer so that any animal that comes into our shelter, we send out to other shelters or rescues So they're not having to stay in our in our We had over 2000 high-risk animals transfer and this is for 2024 to other rescue partners are adoptions, increase 10% moving more animals out quickly into homes. They're our foster program. We have 27 and a half more animals placed in foster care and expanding our life-saving capacity. Staff safety, our workplace injuries continue to decrease in severity and frequency are live release rate. We average 91%. That's a 7% increase from our previous year of 84%. And our new shelter, construction of preparation, which we are
extremely excited about. This Our staff regular adoption event for community engagement and outreach. We do a lot of those all around the city year-round on property in off property of different sites. We're proud to have our increased number of adopted animals and look forward to even more opportunities next year in the new shelter, we're proud to announce that our new volunteer coordinator started just yesterday. That is a vital part of our team hope that he will be very, very great for loyal, dedicated volunteers. I do want to give them a shot 50 of them are here. I don't see any but I do want to thank them very much for their hard work that they do. I would like to highlight their hours that they put into our shelter last year did equal 15 full-time employee. So they put in a lot of work
in shelter. We greatly appreciate it. Number 7 are 2026 schools, priorities and outcomes. Shelter monitors ation preparing for the new a modern facility to be open early 2026. To meet our infrastructure and capacity needs. This will be a big time of transition and learning for us that I c s going to increase our live release rate. Continue to expand our foster adoption rescue to reduce or euthanasia community services would continue to grow. Our indie cares program and increase access to pet support and undeserved are underserved areas. Reporting improve our tracking to guide decisions in planning these data to inform better policy decisions. This will be especially important with transition of the operations at the new shelter as well. And this is a fun little said that this was a drone footage
from JULY of our new building. Kind of shows you the front side. The playgrounds going in the back part of the the back part of the area. The shirt is our pond. And there is a walking trail goes completely around it that the middle section, you see looks like it's open. That is our part of our indoor or outdoor sheltering. I'm happy to answer any questions that you can see that nothing. I can try to point out. What's what in there if you have any questions about it? Some information on that is due to complete MARCH 31st. 2026 will move in sometime likely by MAY. Hopefully. The total square footage for that building is 60,300 Square feet. That will give us 234 total dog kennels 182 of those are indoor or outdoor kennels. Indoor public visitation rooms. Right now. We don't we
have one. So that's a giant increase for us. One indoor dog play area. So the animals don't have to go outside volunteers will have to go outside when they're exercising an animal or canoeing enrichment with an animal. 5 separate puppy kennels. 12 outdoor dog run kennels. Those are big exercise runs. 3200 square feet of dog play. Meet and greet Park 80 cat cages. 2 outdoor cat group playrooms 3 indoor cap room. Player areas, 100% of our dogs and cats have access to natural daylight through windows and skylights has 3700 square feet of state-of-the-art care space, which hopefully will draw Lynn, another new vet and give us a big break there. 2 acres of pasture, space for livestock, animals. 2400 feet or foot. Long dog walking path around the site and pond. The
2 acre public dog Park. 74 parking spaces. And I do want to remind everyone before I turn it over to James for next This is our second budget in our first budget as an independent agency in our first time presenting so any questions. We'll gladly take them at the end. All right. Thank you. Ever in my name is James for my new cfo for the shelter. See here. That we of hymns direction and identified the target amount for reserves. But you'll see that our overall budget production is closer to one and a half percent due to mostly due to charge back increases for our new building. We have a marginal increases to our personnel budget Continue to be changes as we move items around between departments and between accounts as we determine where things will
bit best be in our new shelter. Alright, overall, don't have a very significant change to our revenue. We have counties, adoption fees and collected overdue revenue from revenue recovery as well as this year. You'll see the surplus sales. That's as we are moving out of the building. Committed to at least trying to get. Some cash back for items that would otherwise go to the dumpster will continue to work with a fan and purchasing department on that. So here's the budget breakdown for our character. As we go into this new shelter will look to. See what we need. However, you do see that our overall character, one budget grew by $49,810. So we're funded entirely from Consolidated County general.
And this affords a 2.6% cola for majority of our staff and then a 3% increase for our ask staff as well as increases to health insurance and workers compensation. Next, we have our character, too. Overall, the these are moving departments a lot. But you will see a reduction of $100,000. This. Represents primarily general office supplies and some medical supplies will be looking to kind Make operational changes to you. How these can best. He absorbed by pursuing additional bid contracts next year for. Veteran area spots. And next for character 3, we did identifies some areas too can see that overall. We did see $131,000 increase primarily are charged back 4.
Makes up 8. A portion of that as we move into the new building. Among the things we identified for reserves and 2 make changes were we are currently spending. A good amount of money on emergency repairs. And when we're in the new building, we won't need that money has. It should be under warranty. And I. Would be very upset if I'm making emergency repairs to a month old building. And then next is a kennel cleaning contract. We have decided to end. We'll have a lot more space and just able to make with just tickle changes. Addition to our vacancy, decrease vacancies have allowed us to. Keep
tweeting in-house. And this was initially broke. That count playing contract was initially from when the cleaning situation. What's more difficult with crates in the hallways? We're no longer in that situation. Alright, next, is our care overall character for budget? This decrease related to our. Reduction in vehicle purchases. Most of our fleet from year to year is. Animal control. Officer Trucks, which very expensive. But these have been mostly replaced recently and long term. We will just need to get into a different replacement cycle and look at there are options. Finally, our character 5, which is our internal charge backs. We see a very marginal change and that's related to an increase in. Increase in occ charge us.
Any questions. All right. Thank you. Great job. Now I will take floor committee members asked their questions. I counsel heart the questions. We'll start with him. Thank you, MISTER Chair. Just a bit of dialogue When's the move in date? We don't have an I wish you could be the day that were created the, you know, the building. But it all will have to go through punch list and all that stuff. They're slated to be complete to MARCH 31st. At the latest I was there actually this morning doing a walk-through. Everything is still on track to be complete MARCH 31st. If not a little bit sooner, they think so. After that, it was just, you know, take a little bit of time to get everything moved them before actually be open to the public. Okay. You're right. On the corner of my district. So I when I go to the southwest side of my I'm
looking right at become to do it. Watching Absolutely. Absolutely. So I just want to touch on a couple things that is kind of hurt my ear. The finance side of things you mentioned that you have rent and I'm just curious is how the structures of building authority, So we pay them out to billing authority. The rent to pay for the building. Okay. So that I want to look at You want to ask this question? Maybe none of it. Okay. Okay. Seemed very confident about this. So we the bonds for this project or through the building authority and they're managing that process. And that is correct, I believe on day. But it's a building 30 project. Okay. And then you mentioned the other thing financially in terms of charge backs and the increase in
character 5 going to oc c. What corporate counsel. Demands rising to increase your cost. Not entirely sure about. The sec charge back Get more information for return the yeah. That one. That one's interesting. If it's. Which means that the 280. And whatever the number might be that you mentioned is just curious of what. Why that why trial charge would go up this year. Yeah, I could. I think it come back to that. Give you an answer. Better answer I don't have one for you. No, I just need to be coming even a lot of these committee meetings Withers, I that's the first met usually ties that one was a little bit different for me here. But other than that, I just want raise awareness. The cleaning services to get product to me.
E-mail form too widely. But expressed and Israeli think along those lines. But I think the explanation that you mentioned is is really could not take that back to my Thanks for bringing death welcome. Councilor Kale. Thank you, MR. Chair director just you and I have discussed this. I just the others to. Here's some of this conversation. We are, I guess would you say that? We're continuing to largely wave the adoption fee still? Yes, if if we were to 100% at the current set by ordinance value $60 for adoption. Well, with that, add up to, I think it's roughly 200 yet. I think a little under that depending on if I mean, how many animals were adopting out, how many were bringing in I think fluctuate yearly. And that is something
we are we are dedicated to looking into starting again with the fees that are in our ordinances right now. We're just trying to keep our shelters clear and that it does help waiving that fee right now. Keep your eye and I appreciate that. But particularly as we move into new year with a new shelter that we shouldn't have we shouldn't be constantly full. Hopefully we will not be in that position in light of the fact that it is set by ordinance by this council at $60 bn Benchmarking. I can tell you I have I've looked one of the things that I hear from many of the advocates is the Hamilton County Humane Society is considered one of the of donut community shelters is considered to be kind a good competitor to benchmark against, but they charge up $200. But I would be
much like the nsa has provided us with some information on what other communities are charging. If we were to evaluate whether or not in light of the fact that we really have not been charging that fee for several years. Perhaps we shouldn't let it like some of the other fees get 30, 40 years on maybe now would be a good time to evaluate that. And then separately, as I understand it today, the the fee goes into the general fund we I guess we typically look to the agency through by partnering throw cc on things like this that I would. I would appreciate analysis of whether or not we could. Where should. Put that money straight into ics to make available kind of direct funding because it's my understanding, so have kind of shortfalls and hiring get
staff things like that. Could we rather than give it to the general fund where it might go somewhere else and not straight into ics. Could we address that through That's I guess a comment. But question if if you have any thoughts to add-on. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to have that discussion. We could definitely, you know put in talks and taken o c c and c. We know what what the pathway is to get that done. If it's if it's possible and what that would that would look like for the city. Yeah, I appreciate that because, yeah, yeah. I mean, just we are obviously going to face more and budgetary challenges. We're looking at. You know, fees, not taxes, things like that that are MAY be more palatable for people in to potentially know that there's
lever to the tune of 2 or $300,000 out there that we could be pulling. They could help fund I c s I I my my opinion is I think we should take a look at that committee of the council. Happy to have discussion. Thank you, MR. Thank you. And what are our council like to introduce himself Thank you very much publicity district. Thank you. Thank you, MR. PRESIDENT. So one question I had on this budget is there's a lot of fluidity with this that I notice compared other agencies, how much what do you attribute it to the shelter? Rivers be a new agency counter figure out everything. What would share? Some of the big fat factors because, again, some of these things like 6 million, 2 million, you 1 million to 3 million, no million to 1 Million. Because a lot of changes due to the
big factors in Thank you. Or just a sign where we're seeing should actually. He charged and where things are getting currently charged versus where they were just budget and sitting. There's a lot of it so it's not really. What's not really change changing as much here years. The actual expenses where where these should be belonging. I would say, are we having queue mention contracts? Are we having a lot of our contracts when a new shelter extent of that kind of changes, the capacity of some of these different organizations maybe are different contracts. Are we keeping around the same? As far as our meadow. Well, I guess depend on what contract I would say. We're gonna have to re-evaluate kind of everything just based on. We don't know what it's going to look like going into the new fish and we're going to be are
we going to have a vet? That is one thing. You know, it's a struggle nationwide right now is there's a vet shortage. So that MAY be something we are having to re-evaluate those contracts for medical care. If we can't get you know that in that new building to the hopefully the new building will be, you know, a Kershaw like, hey, do draw it will all that and more so than we are right now. So there's questions. Grapes. Thanks, MISTER Chair, thanks for your presentation and all the work you've been doing over there. I did have an opportunity to get out too. Say hello to you. Some of volunteers employees over where you are currently has a take a look at the new location and thanks for sharing the over overview of
the of the new location. And I noticed the revenue numbers low. And I was wondering if we have this wonderful new place, is there any opportunity for community-based events that could have a fee to come in more celebrations and bring your animal type of events where we can maybe kick up that just think things too, to drive some additional revenue. I know what we're not here to drive revenue necessarily, but it would be good to see that number bump up a little bit more than where it is. Yeah, this this can be fun. So yes, yes, no, I would totally agree. We've talked about that within ourselves. You know, the shelter having more on site events and inviting other rescues organizations to attend those events as well. And just make it kind of like
and mega adoption event on our site. Then we also have the public dog park that will be there, So we could involve parks and that and things like that. You know, that is something we're definitely talking about looking forward to being able to do it in shelter. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Final questions. So are there any members of the public are looking to speak comment tonight? Okay, Chris. Okay. We'll read Kindle to kick. We read the statement. i'm sure Chris will be ok statement anyways. I was a kid. You don't have it, Chris can dispute for 2 minutes. I will hold him accountable, MR. CHAIRMAN and members of the committee, my name is Chris Roberson. I began volunteering
ics in the spring of 2022, I served on the advisory board and as the agency became its own independent now a mayoral appointee to the board, it leave. The city is still working through some administrative challenges, getting that board fully functioning. So in full transparency or board didn't have a chance to review this budget ahead of time. Not so much speaking formally on behalf of the board. The really just want to continue the community's engagement with this with this committee and just share a few thoughts. One is there's a lot of exciting progress that the whole community is excited about. The shelter being long overdue. But something that everybody's excited for. Secondly, I want to commend Council Roberts and other members of the search committee who are involved in finding the new director who I
am extremely excited to work with. She was very gracious with their time at me for coffee a couple weeks ago. I think she's a great hire and she's going to move all things animal welfare in the right direction. That being said, I also want to just be a voice of of reason and really just remind the council that although we have these very encouraging steps in the right direction, we have not solved the animal crisis and animal welfare crisis in Marion County. We still have a drastic overpopulation of dogs and lots of challenges ahead of us. So again, we're excited to work with new director on these, but but I'll be honest, it does pain me a bit to see any decrease in funding to an already underfunded shelter. So I just want to communicate that message. And again, look
forward to working with you. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate we didn't have the notes are ready, but I appreciate for staying on your 2 minutes as everything. So really appreciative for, you know, you do really appreciative for the director cfo, as was already mentioned, mentioned million times. You all are very difficult job. It is a very hard, but we are all very, very grateful for all the work you guys do. And if there are no closing comments from the committee, closing comments from the agency will take a motion for adjournment. Thank you. Most Committee is