Town of Zionsville’s proposed budget boosts public safety, roads

By Nick Poust

Members of the Zionsville Town Council met Sept. 13 to discuss the proposed 2017 budget, with Mayor Tim Haak placing immense importance on staffing police and fire departments.

The budget projects $3.8 million will be at Zionsville’s disposal, with emphasis on hiring more police officers and firefighters while allocating funds for both the parks department and the town’s roads.

“The police department is essentially almost out of reserves right now,” Haak said. “We need to build those back up. There are a number of things we need to utilize those reserves for in the future, probably headquarters expansion and other issues going on. There will be some other distribution of that fund.”

The proposed budget also includes $700,000 for road construction and the parks department.

“We’d like to see a few parks come online sooner than what we have projected in the past,” Haak said. “Vonterra, down on Zionsville Road, we’d like to get that a lot sooner, and then Heritage Trail, we’re in the early stages of that. How do we improve? The time is now to put the money back into our parks.”

If the budget passes as presented, which includes the pending adoption of a .5 percent local income tax for public safety, the fire department would get 12 new positions, according to Deputy Mayor Ed Mitro. There would be six new positions phased in to the police department throughout 2017 and 2018, with three allocated for each year.

In spite of the proposed improvements to Zionsville’s parks, roads and public safety departments, Haak said there is still only so much to go around.

“There’s not a lot we can add unless we take away from others,” Haak said. “We’ve struggled through the recession, and you can only add so much. Then you have to face the harsh reality that a reduction in services will occur. That’s not an exercise anyone in this room wants to go through.”

A public hearing will be held Oct. 3 as the next step of the budget process. If accepted, the budget adoption is expected to occur on Oct. 31, just ahead of the Nov. 2 deadline.