This year’s session of the Indiana General Assembly produced mixed results for Allen County government, officials said Tuesday.
Making their annual legislative assessment for about 30 state and local officials at the Memorial Coliseum, the County Commissioners noted progress in several areas – such as efforts to win state reimbursement for some local criminal-justice expenses and protection against rising inmate medical costs – but failure in other areas, including additional funding for 911 emergency communications.
“Sometimes these things take a few years,” Commissioner Nelson Peters said.
Beth Lock, the commissioners’ director of governmental affairs, said the county can now seek reimbursement through the state’s Medicaid program for the cost of providing medical care to inmates at the jail. Current law requires the county to cover even pre-existing conditions, and last year Sheriff Ken Fries estimated the $1.1 million budgeted could be about $800,000 less than needed.
Lock said the county also received an additional $4.5 million in state transportation funding
It wasn’t discussed, but a bill that would have changed the structure of Allen County government also failed last session.
In next year’s session, she said, the county will continue to seek more 911 fees, additional funding for criminal-justice expenses and the outright repeal of the mandate to treat pre-existing conditions, which some officials say have induced people to seek incarceration.
...
