Tulsa Police Chief Gives Mayor A "No Layoff" Option

By Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- With our economy in crisis, the Tulsa Police Department waits to find out how many officers could be laid off next week.

It could range from 56 to 135 police officers, depending on the city's sales tax numbers.

The News On 6 sat down for a one-on-one interview with Tulsa Police Chief Ron Palmer Monday to talk about the budget crisis.

Palmer told The News On 6 he presented options to the mayor and city council that would mean no lay-offs at all.

"These are the most difficult times I've ever seen," Palmer said.

Mayor Dewey Bartlett recently asked Chief Ron Palmer for two budget estimates, one that cuts 2.2% from the police budget.

The chief says that equaled 56 officers being laid off along with a half million in other cuts, like firing non- officers, cutting back on fuel and freezing open positions.

The second scenario was a 4.4% budget cut.

That would mean laying off 135 officers along with the same half million in cuts.

The chief also sent the mayor something else, suggestions for finding money elsewhere that would mean no layoffs.

"We wanted to bring to their attention there are other options they can explore before they sign the dotted line and police officers go out the door and we have layoffs," Palmer said.

They include taking $3 million designated to buy police cars and use it for salaries and selling the older of the two police choppers for around a million dollars and using that for salaries both of those would require a vote of the people.

Palmer believes citizens would vote yes.

"I think the bottom line is we'll rely on the citizens of Tulsa to determine ho much money is spent on public safety," Palmer said.

He also suggested they take federal grant money that was set aside for keeping guns off the streets and cleaning up meth houses and asking the feds to let them use that for salaries.

Those ideas, along with the union's recent decision to give up take home police cars and change the way they pay overtime would save jobs.

The union also says the city's trash to energy fund has $11 million in it, which could prevent all lay-offs, not just police and fire.

If the mayor and council choose lay-offs and if it's the worst case scenario of 135 officers, that's 17% of the police force.

Chief Palmer says basic police service would remain, you call 911, you get a cop and homicides would still be investigated but many other services could disappear. No more officers working undercover drug cases, investigating hit-and-runs, car thefts or burglaries.

You can read Chief Palmer's budget cuts proposals below. The proposal to save all officer jobs is in the final four items under the mitigate force reduction line in bold.

There are cuts common to both the 2.2% reduction (Approx $1.7+ M) and the

4.4% reduction (Approx $3.4+ M) - They are listed below:

Proposed Reduction Account Type Approx. Reduction

Further Reduce Office Supplies + Non-Cap Equip Material and Supplies $11.7 K

Further Reduce Printing/Reproduction Services and Charges $20.2 K

Reduce Police Recruiting Budget " $11.5 K

Reduce Motor Fuels " $11.0 K

Refund From Helicopter Liability Insurance " $35.2 K

Helicopter Building Lease reduction " $25.0 K

Freeze Internal Affairs Vacant Position (Civilian) Personal Services $42.0 K

Freeze Vacant Police Sgt. Position " $72.5 K

Freeze three (3) Vacant Office Assistant Positions (Civ) " $63.3 K

Freeze one(1) Vacant Office Admin Position (Civ) " $33.6 K

Layoff six (6) retired officer hire backs " $62.0 K

Layoff one (1) CALEA accreditation Mgr. (Civ) " $32.5 K

Layoff three (3) Office Assistants (Civ) " $54.3 K

Layoff three (3) OT 18 Office Administrators (Civ) " $34.1 K

Layoff one (1) OT 16 Office Administrator (Civ) " $14.1 K

Estimated Fuel Savings Services and Charges $13.7 K

To get to the desired savings requested, then we had to look at laying off police officers as outlined below:

To meet the 2.2% - 56 police officers at a cost of $1,209.530 were included in addition to above for a total of $1,746,759

To meet the 4.4% - 135 police officers at a cost of $2,923,563 were included in addition to above for a total of $3,460,792

Our recommendations to "Mitigate Force Reduction" included:

1. Use 3rd Penny sales tax unexpended money earmarked for police vehicles in FY 10 by a "Brown Ordinance" amendment to be transferred to use in salary accounts. A Tedious, public approval process, but do-able. $3M dollars currently available.

2. Sell the older (2003 purchase) of the police helicopters, again use a Brown Ordinance amendment to transfer the sale of the capital item to salary accounts. Estimated value of this copter is $1.1M to $1.3 M.

3. Divert current JAG/Byrne monies already in had designated to other police projects to salary accounts for a short term, fix to the immediacy of needed cash infusion to avoid further lay-offs. This option would require we re-apply to the Fed for the purpose of re-defining use. We were in the process of using this money to rehire the 3 remaining officers laid off previously when instructed to submit further cuts, so we know this reapplication is also do-able. The down side is that officers must be laid off, prior to approval to use the money for hiring.

4. The favorable consideration of the MOU's presented by the FOP relating to concessions relating to take-home cars outside the city limits, minimum staffing levels, and the use of e-time. Roughly estimated at approximately combined total of $600K+

Ron Palmer