Former Indy police chief takes job with local think tank

Troy Riggs, former director of public safety and chief of police for the city of Indianapolis, has taken a position with the Indianapolis-based Sagamore Institute, the think tank for public policy announced Friday.

Troy Riggs

Riggs started on Jan. 3 as a vice president of the institute, where he is focusing on “developing efficient and effective government models based on data collection and community partnerships.”

“I am honored to be part of a team addressing challenging issues facing our country,” Riggs said in a prepared release.

Riggs announced in December that he would step down as chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The reason, he said, boiled down to money.

“I have to think of the future of my family—the financial future,” Riggs, 50, told reporters during a joint press conference with Mayor Joe Hogsett.

He earned $117,187 annually as chief of police. Sagamore Institute executives weren’t immediately available Friday afternoon to discuss his pay with the think tank, but a spokesman said that it was greater than his compensation with the city.

Riggs served as the city’s public safety director under former Mayor Greg Ballard but left that job for a position as IUPUI’s director of public safety outreach in August of 2015. In December 2015, the incoming mayor Hogsett tapped Riggs for the police chief job.

Riggs said he’d told Hogsett during those conversations a year ago that financial considerations might lure him away from the city job.