Monday, April 02, 2012
Sheriff's Deputies Will Finally Start Paying Cost Of Gas For Take-Home Vehicles
Marion County Sheriff John Layton announced today that sheriff's deputies with take-home vehicles will now be required to purchase gas for their personal use, including gas spent on off-duty work, in light of the $15 million deficit the Public Safety Department is facing just after three months into the fiscal year. Layton will charge deputies with take-home vehicle $75 a month; however, if they use their vehicles for off-duty work, they will have to cough up $150 a month. Almost every major city in America long ago adopted this policy for its police officers, but for some absurd reason, Marion County taxpayers have been footing the bill for decades to provide vehicles, gas, equipment, uniforms, etc. to uniformed police officers who provide security services for private companies. As I've pointed out previously, the city-county government could save millions of dollars annually if they required police officers to reimburse for expenses unrelated to the performance of their official duties. No other job in America would allow you to use your company-issued vehicle, equipment and uniform to make money while providing services to another employer. It's time IMPD adopted the same policy.
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6 comments:
This needs to be applied to IMPD, immediately.
It's strictly corruption to let IMPD walk off with millions of taxpayer dollars.
take-home cars create an incredible moral boost for weary officers getting paid little for one of the most difficult jobs out there. increased visibility of marked cars also has an impact on crime. i wouldn't describe that as "corruption."
why not blame Strauss for his lousy fiscal management (like his demand for a completely unnecessary personal protection detail for example) instead of punishing the beat cop...
Sorry, Herbert, but those police officers are paid more than enough for their work. They are not underpaid by any stretch of the imagination.
1) Gary, I don't really feel that $50,000 a year is adequate salary for taking a bullet for someone, getting beat up by drunks and drug addicts, and getting fried by the media on a daily basis.
2) Perhaps someone should ask the sheriff WHY he needs 276 vehicles, many of them fully equipped and marked Dodge Chargers, when he does not have a patrol function anymore. In addition, he has a fleet of Harley motorcycles.
Herbert, all your claptrap has been exploded previously on this and other Indianapolis forums. I don't have time to dispel these myths, again and again.
Further, cops are highly paid, with far better salaries, benefits and job security than are enjoyed by the people who employ them.
CT, sounds like we need to get IMPD back under the Sheriff, since he's doing a better job than IMPD in getting the cops in line and being accountable to the taxpayers.
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2011/04/ballard-administration-refuses-to.html
The "studies" show of take-home cars:
1. No net reduction in crime;
2. That take-home cars become targets of crime;
3. That cops don't live in high-crime areas so any benefit of the car is misplaced;
4. That criminals are able to use the location and movement of the cars to perform logistical analysis in crime planning;
5. That cops have domestic lifestyles similar to everyone else, so they don't come running out of the house with a gun if a crime is in progress;
6. That police are forced to purchase more cars; and,
7. That these cars are a massive expense to police departments that reduce their balance sheets, thus their crime-fighting abilities.
Take-home cars are nothing but a FOP union perk, but Republicans love unions when it's the FOP.
Take-home cars increase crime.
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