Tulsa's Budget

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

My observations:

1.  Fiscal year 2007 has Tulsa's largest budget ever in the history of the city.

If you adjust for inflation, it is not the largest budget.  In fact, the city's budget has been stagnant for a decade.

[Graph from Martinson's report]

What, are you trying to play games?

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Kiah

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

So that begs the question, how many new officers can be hired and trained on that 4.6% increase?

+4.6% of last year's TPD operating budget is +$3.47 million.  What happened to Mr. Fiscal Restraint?  Isn't a three and a half million dollar annual increase sufficient for you?  That doesn't include the bill for extra overtime that the Police Department submits at the end of every fiscal year.

Kiah, my point is that Ms. Taylor ran a lot of ads during her campaign which said she would be tough on crime.  I'm all for doing what it takes to lower the crime rate, it benefits us all and helps make Tulsa more attractive for new companies moving to town.  

I'm simply asking, how many new officers can we hire and train and provide equipment for in that budget increase?  Nothing more, nothing less.

[rwarn17588]

Shadows, a 21 percent increase in the budget over a decade is not high at all.

When you consider that inflation averaged 2.8 percent a year over the past decade, that means the city's budget was growing *below* the rate of inflation.

It's not like the city was spending money like a bunch of drunken Washington Republicans.

[Wilbur]

quote:Originally posted by Kiah

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

My observations:


2.  Public safety received the smallest percentage increase of any area of the city.

I'm used to lame assertions by the FOP, but that's possibly the lamest.  The Police and Fire Departments are by far the biggest General Fund expenditures, and they came through recent massive budget cits relatively unscathed.  Of course they're going to have among the smallest "percentage increase" in last year's budget.

Adding a hundred grand to the Finance Department or the Human Rights Department's budget would be a pretty big percentage increase.  It's not even a rounding error in the Police Department budget.

When you look at page 2-15 of the executive summary document, it says public safety received the smallest percentage increase.  Is that somehow wrong?  I didn't say they received the smallest dollar increase.

You can say the same thing about employee salaries (discussed in another topic area).  While the Mayor's staff received higher percentage salary increases then everyone else, that is somehow okay because total dollars was less because there are fewer employees?

[AVERAGE JOE]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

Shadows, a 21 percent increase in the budget over a decade is not high at all.

When you consider that inflation averaged 2.8 percent a year over the past decade, that means the city's budget was growing *below* the rate of inflation.

Don't confuse him with facts, it'll get in the way of his b!tch session.

Gee, the very idea something costs more than it did 10 years ago. Holy freakin' crap, who would've ever thought? [:O]

[shadows]

"Don't confuse him with facts, it'll get in the way of his b!tch session."

When you reduce it to over a hundred million dollars increase in ten years without an increase in population; regardless that sooner or later adds up to real money.

As you are aware the mayor can appoint a police chief from where they choose.   Also the charter says the mayor will provide a police department.   Now in  the future the mayor replaces the entire police department along with civic service departments from another area, what then?