INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — A proposal to add oversight to the Marion County Office of Public Health and Safety has failed to gain enough support from the Indianapolis City-County Council.
The failed measure follows an audit that raised questions about contract management, internal processes, and oversight.
Monday night, the city-county council voted 18 to 6 against Proposal 190. Republican City-County Councilor Michael-Paul Hart authored the proposal. He says he's shocked it didn't pass.
"Our own council did not want to have a level of accountability to at least say, show us what you're going to do, have it in a resolution, and make sure it gets done. I'm just flabbergasted that they wouldn't want to do that for taxpayer dollars," Hart said.
Hart's proposal would have required OPHS to implement standardized procedures for managing contracts, invoices and contractors, along with ongoing staff training. He also said he was prepared to seek the withholding of funding if those reforms weren't made.
"I want to see all of the effectiveness of how they're running, one because if they're working really well, we should do more of it, but if they're not working, we should reallocate those funds, and that's just how any other organization should operate," Hart said.
OPHS said despite the vote, the agency has already taken action.
"I don't know that the proposal was necessary at this time. OPHS has been making significant progress in addressing the findings in the audit, and I do think the audit is definitely hold us and other folks in the administration accountable," Merkley said.
Merkley says the agency is working to finalize several standard operating procedures for various systems within the agency, scheduling additional ethics training for the entire staff, and building out centralized storage systems for programs, documentation and data.
"We're continuing to train our teams on these new standard operating procedures and how to use this new centralized system," he said.
Merkley says he's happy the proposal did not pass but says he appreciates that Hart's proposal was meant to hold OPHS accountable.
"What we need now is to show the results to the public, and they are starting to put out reports and I think a lot of that is because we are starting to put that pressure on. There are some other councilors who are asking for more monthly reporting and I think we just need to keep that pressure on," Hart said.
"There were several items or findings in that audit that take time. It takes time to address them, and do them the right way, and make sure the entire team, a decently agency, to make sure our agency and our team are able to implement those changes effectively," Merkley said.
