Gary finance committee reviews 2025 general and special revenue budgets; ordinance presented, no vote

Councilwoman Linda Barnes Colwell presided over the Gary City finance committee meeting on Jan. 30, 2025, where officials presented CPO 2025-2001, an ordinance to amend City of Gary Ordinance No. 9749 and approve the city’s general and special revenue funds for calendar year 2025. Committee members heard department-by-department overviews but did not take a formal vote on the ordinance during the meeting.

The presentations matter because the ordinance would set salaries and operating appropriations that fund programs including civil-rights enforcement, public-health initiatives tied to opioid-settlement funds, information-technology contracts, and housing programs funded through HOME and ESG grants.

Hanifa Khalik, executive director of the Gary Human Relations Commission and vice president of the Indiana Consortium of State and Local Human Rights Agencies, reviewed four commission funds. She said a donation fund contains $838 in carryover from past anniversaries and that the commission has no immediate plans to spend that balance. Khalik reported salary levels for investigators: the general investigator’s salary is listed at $39,335 (paid from the EEOC-related fund) and a supervisor investigator’s salary is listed at $39,685 (paid from the fair housing fund). Khalik also described a proposed training-and-education budget supported by a Department of Housing and Urban Development fair-housing grant; the commission proposes $38,523 for that fund for 2025, and she said the commission received $9,000 this year for training compared with $8,400 the previous year. Khalik said the commission plans outreach events including a mayor’s disability organization luncheon and joint Black History Month programming with other civil-rights groups.

Veronica Collins Ellis, executive director of the Gary Health Department, summarized a revised unrestricted opioid-settlement budget. Ellis said the only change in that budget is a request to hire a full-time project manager at $70,000 to oversee both a community mental-health crisis initiative and opioid-related subrecipient programs. Ellis said the position will require a licensed social worker with behavioral-health experience and that the position is posted; she said she expects to begin filling it “as soon as possible.” Ellis also described a transitioning warming-and-cooling shelter for women and children that would provide up to three days of temporary shelter while staff work to secure longer-term placements. She emphasized that persons fleeing domestic violence would not be housed at the warming-and-cooling center; intake for those cases would be handled by phone and the department would provide hotel vouchers or other placements.

An information-technology presenter, identified as Mai, said the nonreverted IT fund (which holds payments from the Gary International Airport for IT services) will remain largely unchanged except for an increase in a contractual maintenance agreement. Mai said the contractual line item is being raised to $48,000 from $15,000 to cover centralized cybersecurity services the city now pays in part for multiple entities.

A community-development presenter described a salary adjustment routed through community development funds so a department director would receive a higher pay rate that the city could not increase through another fund. The presenter and a council member characterized the total fiscal effect of that change as “about $73,000” in increased cost. The committee also heard that a director-level salary previously shown as $99,800 is being adjusted (details were discussed during the meeting and not fully itemized in the packet).

Adrian, a community-development staff member, described reclassifying existing positions’ line items between personnel and supply categories in the HOME and ESG (Emergency Solutions Grant) programs. Adrian said one full-time position will be funded by both programs, with $43,000 charged to HOME administration and $13,000 charged to ESG.

No formal motion or roll-call vote on CPO 2025-2001 was recorded in the meeting transcript. Committee business concluded with a scheduling note: the finance committee will meet again Feb. 11. The presenters were limited to budget overviews and answered clarifying questions from council members.