Tulsa City Council Discusses Budget Cuts

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, OK --  Tulsa's City Council took a magnifying glass to the city's fiscal year budget Wednesday morning. 

The council met Wednesday to go over the mayor's budget proposals for the current fiscal year, line by line.  It is the first step toward the council approving the budget. 

Mayor Dewey Bartlett outlined his plan to get the city back in the black last month. 

Since then he's brokered a deal with the Tulsa firefighters union to save all of their jobs.  They are taking a 5.2 percent pay cut along with other benefit concessions.

1/31/2010  Related Story: Tulsa Firefighters Union Accepts Mayor's Proposal, Stops Layoffs

He offered a deal to the Tulsa Police union, but the union membership rejected it.  Now the mayor says he's willing to start over with police union, but says the offer they turned down last week is off the table.

"As we all know they made their decision last week to allow themselves to be laid off.  We've completed that process. the fire department came back positive and made the decision to stay employed...So until we hear from the FOP leadership we're moving ahead and trying to evaluate our budget and come up with new ways to make the government work better," said Mayor Dewey Bartlett. 

The mayor says police layoffs cost the city money and time, so any new proposal would have to take that into consideration. 

Bartlett says while the offer to renegotiate is still on the table he hasn't heard from the police union, so that's why the city of Tulsa is moving ahead as planned.

Last Friday, the city laid off 124 police officers, 30 other employees and gave firefighters an 11% cut in salary and benefits.

1/29/2010  Related Story: 31 Fewer Tulsa Police Officers Laid Off