Committee to save taxpayer dollars

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Wednesday night was the first meeting for the Public Safety Task Force. The group will attempt to find answers to some major public safety questions.

"Are there any functions we share in common, are there any ways we can do things better, and how does the quote other side do it," said Fort Wayne City Councilwoman Liz Brown.

It's a committee made up of City Council, County Council, County Commissioners, the Fire Chief, Police Chief, and even the Deputy Mayor.

"Sitting in the same room and talking at the same time than we have a good chance of figuring out what we both do best and how we can help the other improve even if we don't combine services," said Brown.

This committee was formed after the results of a Local Government Efficiency Study were released last year. That study said public safety is too important to plan alone.

"For people to be creative and try to use whatever innovation they may have to work together," said Allen County Commissioner Bill Brown.

Public safety makes up over $150 million of the annual County and City budgets.

"Be able to come up with some best practices be able to do things more cost effectively this is a big piece of our local budget," said Bill Brown.

Wednesday night the committee began to tackle two of its major issues. The possible consolidation of the County and City 911 call centers and a potential joint operation facility for City and County police.

"Can we combine because we can operate more efficiently and if we aren't are we doing things as efficiently as we are in our own seperate spaces," said Liz Brown

Regardless this is the first step in providing more efficient and cost effective service to Allen County taxpayers.

"This isn't going to be some long drawn out study group, this will be what do you do, how well do you do it, what do we do and how well do we do it, and can we help each other do this better," said Liz Brown.

Just to give you an example of how this committee could help. If all the fire departments communicate and purchase equipment together. They could all benefit from the cost savings of buying in bulk.