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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe 2027 city-county budget won’t include funding to end ankle monitor fees that individuals have to pay while being supervised by Marion County Community Corrections.
Community Corrections had proposed eliminating the fee collection, which could cost the department about $2.5 million annually. Advocates for the move say the fees can be challenging for people trying to comply with law enforcement and re-enter society after incarceration.
Currently, monitored individuals pay a $50 installation charge plus up to $8 per day of supervision — with exceptions based on individual factors like family and income status. There might also be fees for damaged equipment or replacements.
This means that an individual on electronic monitoring for a year — including those who have not yet been to trial — might be charged up to nearly $3,000 for the supervision.
Marion County Community Corrections Executive Director Scott Hohl said removing the barrier of payment would allow more people on electronic monitoring to be successful.
“For a $1.5 million increase in our annual budget, we could do away with user fees for all of our clients in Marion County,” Hohl told the council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee in August. He said this would be a “very wise investment” because corrections currently doesn’t collect a large portion of fees that it is owed.
Emily Kaufmann, a spokesperson for Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration, said the administration is not recommending any budget changes, but it will continue to work with Community Corrections to better understand current fee collection practices and the source of payments. That’s because neither the Mayor’s Office nor the Office of Finance and Management received a request for additional budget to cover ankle monitoring fees before the budget request deadline.
Hohl told Indianapolis Business Journal that his office submitted more documents and answered some additional questions from the controller’s office about the request.
Indianapolis City-County Councilor Andy Nielsen said the shift in covering the costs raises a lot of questions that still need to be explored. Those include understanding the true cost and who would receive relief.
“There are just a number of outstanding items that I don’t yet know we have the answers to (in order) to make such a policy change,” Nielsen said.
Hohl said in August that he thought the budget shift was doable, but he figured the odds of it happening were “probably 50-50 at best.”
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