Trees, tutors and road work: Indy's $27 million quality of life investment

By: Taj Simmons

INDIANAPOLIS — How much can $27 million improve life for the nearly 1,000,000 people who live in Marion County? The Indianapolis City-County Council cleared the way for residents to find out.

Councilors approved the $27 million spring fiscal neighborhood funding package during Monday night's meeting. More than half of it is allocated for the Department of Public Works, which includes funding for infrastructure projects and new vehicles.

"We are listening to our constituents and making important quality of life investments across local government to make Indianapolis a great place," said District 14 councilor Andy Nielsen.

The remaining half of the $27 million investment is split between a variety of quality-of-life initiatives, such as funding for Indy Parks and crime prevention grants.

The most unique line item is $1 million to purchase and preserve Indianapolis' remaining urban forests.

"It does feel good to have these monetary wins, but these trees are doing so much more for us than we are doing for them right now," said Jonathan Munro of the Indiana Forest Alliance.

Munro believes preserving the forests instead of developing them is important for Indianapolis' health and desirability.

"When you see how many residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park or green space out of the top 100 most populous cities in the U.S.A., we're very, very far down that list," Munro said. "Every vacant strip mall, every crumbling parking lot that has been developed and now forgotten used to be a pristine forest like this."

$600,000 of the spending package will go to Circle City Readers, a city-sponsored program to tutor children between kindergarten and third grade. The money ensures the program will keep going after American Rescue Plan funds expire.

"We know it's working. We see the results. It's helping communities, kids and schools," said Holly Morgan, who leads the Circle City Readers program through the city's Office of Education Innovation. "Kids are confident, they are reading, they are getting those foundational skills that they maybe missed, and they are passing IREAD 3."

A complete breakdown of the $27 million spending package, as outlined by the City-County Council, is below:

$13 million for the Department of Public Works to support road improvements, infrastructure upgrades, and stormwater improvements
$2 million to purchase trucks for the Department of Public Works, which will be used for snow plowing and street repair, and an additional $2 million to hire contractors to remove snow on residential streets, supporting implementation of the City’s updated snow removal ordinance passed by the Council
$2 million for Indy Parks maintenance, ensuring clean and accessible public spaces
$2 million for the Homeowner Repair Program to support housing stability
$2 million for Crime Prevention Grants, advancing community-based violence reduction efforts
$1 million for Urban Forest Preservation to promote environmental sustainability
$600,000 to the Circle City Readers, a tutoring program with demonstrated success in improving literacy rates among students in Indianapolis
$500,000 to implement safety improvements recommended by the Fatal Crash Review Team, supporting the overall efforts of the Vision Zero initiative
$500,000 to support current and expand new Cultural Districts