Torriaun Everett’s debt to Marion County grows $8 every day.
It’s the cost for the electronic ankle monitor that keeps tabs on him for Marion County Community Corrections during his four-and-a-half year house arrest sentence.
“For me personally, paying the ankle monitor fees are the least of my focus,” said Everett, who founded Bros Foundation to help connect people leaving prison and jail to resources. “I’m focused on how I can continue to build relationships with other partners in the community.”
People under supervision like Everett are supposed to pay for their monitors and for periodic drug testing — a set of charges known as user fees.
But Everett doesn’t pay those fees, and if forced to, he’d have to make difficult decisions to cover them over other living expenses.
He’s far from alone. Of the more than $3.4 million billed to participants in 2025, the county’s community corrections agency only collected about $524,000. Most of that was taken out of participants’ tax returns. Only about 3% gets paid directly by participants.
It’s why Scott Hohl, executive director of Marion County Community Corrections, is asking the city for $1.5 million in the 2027 budget to cover the fees outright.
User fees are among the many costs defendants in the program, typically charged with low-level offenses, can incur as part of their conviction, incarceration and release. They create some revenue for government services, but advocates say they make it more difficult for already disadvantaged people to get back on their feet and can follow them well after their sentence ends.
Failing to pay user fees in Indianapolis could send someone back to jail, but Hohl said his agency is not interested in pursuing people for nonpayment alone.
“I don’t think it would be a good use of jail space,” he told city-county councilors at the Aug. 19 budget hearing.
The request was not part of the agency’s initial budget proposal because Hohl was told to keep spending flat. But he is hoping the budget can be changed ahead of the City-County Council’s vote Oct. 19.
“We’re spending time and money and staff,” he said, “to deal with fee issues where we just really aren’t bringing in any money anyway.”
Choosing between fees and food
One fatal mistake changed Everett’s life forever.
In March 2022, he was driving while intoxicated when he crashed his Jeep Cherokee into a median. His best friend and passenger, 32-year-old Andre Johnson, was killed in the crash.
“It was a tragic choice,” Everett said.
He later pleaded guilty to two felonies. He spent nine months in state prison before being released on house arrest in late 2025.
Since then, he’s been trying to rebuild his life. Prior to the crash, he was an executive at MDwise, a nonprofit that until recently helped low-income Hoosiers get Medicaid coverage. He earned a six-figure salary and managed a multi-million dollar budget.
Now, he has no permanent residence and is struggling to find work.
If Marion County started to come after his user fee debt, it could mean going without food or gas, or worse — being sent to jail for nonpayment.
“The fees, it’s something that’s just dangling over people’s heads,” he said. “When does the sentence end? When does the punishment end? When am I able to move forward with rebuilding my life?”
Not everyone is convinced covering user fees is a worthwhile use of the city’s limited taxpayer dollars.
Michael Paul-Hart, a Republican councilor representing a southside district, said at the council meeting that when constituents tell him what they want to improve public safety, they ask for sidewalks, street lights, bike lanes and community spaces.
“None of them asked me to subsidize the ankle monitoring program for felons in Indianapolis. And when I hear the request, I hear it, but I also hear the request of my constituents, and those two things don’t align,” he said.
Most people overseen by the county’s community corrections agency were convicted of low-level felonies, according to Hohl. Most offenses were nonviolent and were often related to substance use or mental health issues.
In an interview with Mirror Indy, Hart said he might change his position if he saw data from similar programs in other cities and if the funds were used to reimburse people who were meeting their community corrections requirement.
“Covering the cost because they are incentivized to do well, go to work, et cetera, to have their costs covered — that’s a good idea,” he said.
Part of a larger cost
Fees are just one unseen cost of being connected to the justice system, according to Sheik Devante Gilbert-Bey. He is an organizer with the Validus Movement, which seeks to empower people reentering society after incarceration.
Late last year, the group started hearing about the high cost of caring for a loved one who is incarcerated. That led to the Cost of the Cage campaign, which called for Indianapolis to cover more costs of incarceration in its annual budget.
“That money can go towards you buying a suit for a job interview, you putting towards transportation to a job interview, buying Ubers, anything,” he said.
Gilbert-Bey has firsthand experience. He served in state prison for his role in a 2017 armed robbery where three people were killed. He was 18 years old at the time. Gilbert-Bey wasn’t charged in relation to the murders, but still served seven years for robbery.
He estimated he and his family already spent as much as $50,000 over seven years while he was in state prison on things like gas for visits, phone calls and commissary purchases. Then when he left prison, he was surprised by a $250 fee he had to pay to get his license back.
“There was my very first barrier of like, oh crap! I’m not prepared for this,” he said.
Ultimately, he got connected to a nonprofit who helped him pay the fee.
“What if I didn’t have the organization?” he said. “I could have then spiraled, figured it out myself and possibly back in prison.”
In June, the Validus Movement announced it had secured commitments from the city to waive drug tests fees and reimburse ankle monitoring fees for people under supervision.
Hohl told Mirror Indy that he committed to pursuing those changes, and requested funding to do so.
It’s difficult to determine whether people who pay their fees are less likely to reoffend, Hohl said. But more people are successfully completing community corrections programs, even though the agency collects fewer fees.
Even after a person has left community corrections and completed their sentence, user fee debt can follow them. To collect the debt, the state may take part of a person’s tax return. And it shows up in their credit report.
“With the way the system’s currently set up, as long as those fees are still sitting out there owed, it’s hanging over their heads,” Hohl said.
What’s next
On Sept. 30, the City-County Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee voted to advance its portion of the budget, including for the Marion County Community Corrections.
The budget does not include the $1.5 million to cover user fees. Jake McVeigh, deputy controller, said his office had received the request but had not thoroughly vetted it.
The council will take public comment on the city’s budget at 7 p.m. Oct. 5 in the Public Assembly Room of the City-County Building, 200 E. Washington St.
This article was prompted by notes taken by Documenter Ellise Johnson, who covered the Aug. 19 Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee 2027 budget hearing. 📝 Read more about what happened.
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Emily Hopkins is a senior reporter at Mirror Indy. You can reach them by phone or Signal at 317-790-5268 or email at emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis or on Bluesky @emilyhopkins.bsky.social.
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