Police Layoffs

[Townsend]

I didn't see the email but I heard today that the city is not planning on replacing any of the officers that retire with laid off officers.  I know of one officer that is retiring at the end of this month and there is no plans to replace him with a soon to be laid off officer even thou the city would be saving money because the officer that is going to retire is on the top pay step and the new officer is one from the bottom.  I'm not saying they should replace them one for one but if 20 to 40 retire like is planned this year then I think they could hire back the few that can't be covered by the grant.

I am curious if this is actually true or not.

I believe the retirees are part of the budget cuts.

[patric]

The city administration emailed the FOP at 1:30pm on Monday and gave the ultimatum of officers giving up their take home cars (all of them) outside the city and to make it a requirement that you give  5 days notice before you take a comp day instead of 24 hours or they would lay off officers.  The mayor's people then said they needed an answer by 3:30pm.  The FOP stated they they needed more time to discuss this and wanted to know how much money the city was trying to save.  The city responded nevermind that, those are your options! You need to accept this by 3:30pm.  The FOP then responded that we couldn't even have a executive board meeting in 2 hours.  So the city went ahead and started the lay off process.

Did that completely take the union by surprise?
There was never any previous discussion of eliminating take-home cars out of the city?

[MH2010]

They talked about it during the last negotiations but they really wanted furloughs for everyone.  I think we would have done the charge for taking the cars outside of the city but the administration was all about furloughs. They had this deal about furloughs for eveyone no matter what.  Recently, there was no talk about taking the cars.  They only figured out the lay-off deal on Friday and then set that stuff to the FOP on Monday.

[sgrizzle]

Sounded to me that the city is still open to last-minute negotiations.

[MH2010]

The FOP and the city are in negotiations now but I don't have high hopes. 

[Wilbur]

The FOP has been making numerous suggestions to the City for the past several months, but most get rejected before even the slightest consideration.

The FOP warned months ago that furloughs would end up costing more in the long run, and they were right.  Don't you find it curious furloughs were never discussed this time around?

The FOP proposed taking 64 hours (same amount of time as furloughs) of comp time away from each officer in place of furloughs.  This has several benefits:  no furloughing one employee then hiring back another at time and one half, it is less time you have to replace an officer in a future comp day, plus it allows officers to work overtime and put in for comp time instead of pay (if they were previously maxed out on comp time).  City said no.

The FOP offered to go with all comp time instead of pay for overtime, which would have saved at least $2.1M.  But the city insisted on furloughs for all employees, so the city said no.

The $1.1M cost for take home cars is NOT correct.  The last figure I remember hearing for the cost of take home cars AND using the cars at part time jobs was around $250K.

Other offers were made that I was not privy to, but, believe me, the FOP has been trying.

[Conan71]

MH and Wilber thanks for the insight from your point-of-view, helps knowing both sides.  FWIW, I appreciate what you guys do.

[brianh]

I don't really like to see anyone lose their jobs, but we had police officers sitting at speed traps all day. We definitely need a little house cleaning, those guys could have been following leads into real crimes. A crime like my stolen truck tailgate a few years ago, that took 4 hours for a police officer to come to my house.  And then a year later my stolen truck which took only 3 hours for them to come out to. On top of that, either case was solved, no evidence was collected and I was never called back on anything.  Maybe they can use this as a wake up call.  I would expect to get fired if I failed at my job like that.

The officers that did respond were very cordial and professional though, so I hope it wasn't them. Just the slackers.

[TUalum0982]

I have kind of an interesting perspective on this whole situation. Up until now, I thought Kathy Taylor had done a pretty decent job, but she had some faults.  She certainly wasnt perfect, but who is?  Like other people have said, why didnt our Mayor and City Council see this coming?  Ever since we (the city) decided to accept the grant money, I have been working on my app for TPD (it is very lengthy).  I was hoping to test in Jan and get into next summers academy. That looks like it has been thrown out the window. 

I don't understand (from all accounts I have read) the mayor didnt give us and the police dept more of a notice.  And why didn't the police union ratify their contract like the fire dept did?  Why didnt Kathy Taylor come to the citizens and companies of Tulsa and say hey "we are in deep trouble with our budget, we might be looking at laying off police officers, grounding helicopters and getting rid of mounted patrol.  Please if every citizen can donate 5 or 10 dollars that would help out tremendously."  Also companies like QT or Kaiser or some other affluent names in the city could come up with some money.  Collect money at the doors of concerts at the BOK, cains and TU football games. 

To me it just sounds like they hastily decided on this decision without putting much effort or thought into it.  It is like a kid who is working a puzzle or trying to solve a problem and they just give up within a few minutes and say "its too hard,  I cant do it".  To me thats how I feel.  I feel our city leaders let us down as and it really stings. 

I don't have much faith in Bartlett or Adelson, but I hope one of them steps up and corrects this HUGE MISTAKE quickly.

[Wrinkle]

If the council had not accepted the grant, there would be no TPD layoffs. This is all a scheme to be able to change the use of the grant money.

It would be nice if the extra millions collected from the EMSA water bill fee could be allocated to the city budget.

I was pretty sure that IS the case. IIRC, the City Water Bill FEE (tax) for EMSA is collected by the City. Water/Sewer/Storm goes to PW, Trash goes to TARE and EMSA goes to General Fund from which City subscribes to EMSA services at fixed fee. Balance stays in GF. But, that has been my assumption. As it were, that represented about a $5 million surplus to GF just on the EMSA tax.

[Wrinkle]

You'll also recall there's been three years in a row where water rates increased by 7% each year (think one year was even greater).

And, Ms. Kitty unnecessarily raised the Stormwater Management Fee by 25% last year in anticipation of those extra funds being allocated to the General Fund. But, that can't happen since those are Enterprise Funds, as I understand it. So, she's been busy trying to find a way to get her hands on Enterprize Funds, which, once done, opens access to them all to shift around at will. Thus, defeating the designed purpose of Enterprise Funds.

Maybe that's the trouble with the EMSA tax funds now, too. Even if they aren't all paid to EMSA, she might not be able to access the balance.

[Conan71]

I don't really like to see anyone lose their jobs, but we had police officers sitting at speed traps all day. We definitely need a little house cleaning, those guys could have been following leads into real crimes. A crime like my stolen truck tailgate a few years ago, that took 4 hours for a police officer to come to my house.  And then a year later my stolen truck which took only 3 hours for them to come out to. On top of that, either case was solved, no evidence was collected and I was never called back on anything.  Maybe they can use this as a wake up call.  I would expect to get fired if I failed at my job like that.

The officers that did respond were very cordial and professional though, so I hope it wasn't them. Just the slackers.

Stolen truck tailgate? Real crime?  I dunno, theft is theft, but let's be honest, your only recourse on that (unless you got a tag number of the bum that stole it as he drove away) was to fill out a police report and file it on your insurance.  They can't possibly afford the man-power to go out and track down your stolen truck parts unless it's part of a larger ring of theft and stolen parts dealing.

[cannon_fodder]

He does raise a good point.  In other cities I have lived in (and other police officers I know), they at least pretend to collect evidence or care.  When ~$20,000 worth of items were stolen from my friends construction yard he told the cops who took it (1 employee that had a key never showed up for work again) - they said if he didn't have a video they wouldn't investigate.  A home near mine was broken into (a retired Chicago cop lives there) and there were palm and finger prints on the glass next to the window they broke out.  They didn't bother collecting them.  I've had acquaintances in Tulsa have vehicles or parts of vehicles stolen with no investigation at all (including, in one instance, a transmission taken from a truck overnight.  The apartment complex had video and the police never bothered getting it).  I personally witnessed a hit and run and when attempting to get the license plate number ended up chasing down what turned out to be a stolen vehicle - the guy fled on foot after a couple blocks.   I gave a description of the guy to the police and they found a hotel room key while searching the truck (plus prints all over, etc.).    But nothing ever came of it (you know what he looks like, you have his finger prints, you know where he was staying).  On another occasion I was shot at by another car (Harvard and the BA) who then proceeded to race onto the BA.  They came a few hours later and took a report . . . but nothing ever came of it.

Seriously, other than murders, home invasions, and bank robberies - does Tulsa investigate any crimes?    Or did I just happen upon a slew of examples that are rare?  Or does investigations or even casual looking into non-violent non-drug crimes not really happen anymore?  If I were a criminal I'd have supreme confidence in my ability to get away with any theft I wanted.

I admit I may be delusional.  But I'd think they would at least pick the low hanging fruit.

And I agree.  All my interactions with the TPD have been very professional.

[shadows]

I believe that sales taxes are submitted to the OTC weekly which city can access as to the anticipated amount to be expected by the city almost 45 days later.  This at the present seem why the reduction in the budget funding has become so critical to establish what funds are available before  overdrawn notices are issued.

The city has been divided into several department thus each department submits how much they need to operate their department.  There is no source available or provided to audit the departments on how the money could possibly have been misspent.   You elect a auditor but the departments will not cooperate in any auditing.(nor the union)  The powers of Tulsa restricts even the Federal Government from interfering with its operations.

The line between controlled government and government of the taxpayers peers is being painted by a broader brush daily.  Government jobs pay much more that those of private industries.   Well except those that are established to divert the working poor's money to personal satisfaction by payoffs.

   

[MDepr2007]

I think some are forgetting it was Mayor Taylor that gave them their raise in 2006 without it going to a vote of the people.