Sheriff outlines plan to save on arrestees' hospital costs - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

The Marion County sheriff says he will save taxpayers thousands of dollars in costs by streamlining operations.

Sheriff John Layton says he can cut costs by where he takes people arrested for drunk driving, public intoxication and other alcohol-induced crimes.

The emergency room at Wishard Hospital is no longer the first stop for falling down drunks or those arrested for combative and erratic behavior in need of minor medical treatment.

Layton says he's reeling in the cost for emergency room treatment for public intoxication.

"Instead of taking the intoxicants to Wishard Hospital - and the public on tax dollars paying for emergency room services - because they're intoxicated, we have certain medical personnel on staff at the Arrestee Processing Center," Layton told Eyewitness News.

Since mid-March, the sheriff's department has kept at least one registered nurse and two other health professionals on 24-hour duty to care for arrestees ailing from substance abuse.

It's one of the sheriff's first steps to address a $12 million budget shortfall.

"Medical personnel sit right across the hall from where intoxicated arrestees are detained. That gives them a birds eye view of what's going on," Layton said.

So far, the Wishard Redirect Pilot program has seen 19 offenders treated at the APC, instead of taking up bed space in the emergency room, where each visit potentially costs the county thousands of dollars.

But is the program putting these offenders at risk? The sheriff says no.

"If the one out of a hundred that come in there intoxicated and need to, for some reason or another, be hospitalized, we send them right back out to Wishard Hospital," explained Layton, who says departmental attorneys have also weighed in on the change.

Layton says he's doing what he can to streamline, but says he's still awaiting word from the city on other ideas he has submitted.

City Spokesman Marc Lotter says no ideas are on the table, and that the mayor's office wants departments to focus on more areas of savings.

"What we need to do is make sure that we're allocating those resources right, that we're making sure that we're spending where the priorities are," Lotter responded.

"The time's getting short. We have budgets coming up. We have to worry about where this money's going to come from, and we at least have to show the folks of Marion County that we have a plan," said Layton.

The back and forth between the sheriff and mayor's office is about a suggestion by the sheriff to take over traffic enforcement duties from IMPD. Layton says he has 40 deputies who can write traffic citations, in order to free up IMPD officers for patrol.

Lotter says the mayor is not entertaining any such plan as he prepares next year's budget, which is due to the council in August.