City of Tulsa Audit Identifies 600 City Services, Some Duplication

By Emory Bryan, The News on 6 

TULSA, OK -- An ongoing audit of city of Tulsa government has found 600 separate services provided by city employees, with some duplication of services spread throughout departments.

The Tulsa City Council was briefed on the audit by KPMG Tuesday morning.

2/15/2010 Related story: City Of Tulsa Examining Costs Of Each City Service

Auditors are two thirds of the way through the planned audit timeline and have released no final conclusions from their work.

"There's four or five things that belong in city government," Terry Simonson, Mayor's Chief of Staff, said. "A lot of the other stuff, you really have to look at where is the best place to get the best service, it is us, or is it in the private sector?"

Simonson says even basic services like parking meters should be examined, to determine if someone else could provide better service at lower cost.

As it is, many of the meters are inoperable and collect nothing because the city hasn't spent the money to keep batteries in them.

Auditors will grade each service green to red.

Simonson said the Tulsa Zoo was rated two reds, and two yellows, identifying it as not a core service that's not performing well.

Read the scorecard methodology.

The audit at the zoo found 37 distinct services performed by the equivalent of 85 full time employees.

Simonson said the audit found while the city spends $4.2 million on the zoo, the return is $1.6 million.

However, Simonson said early information from the audit validates the decision to privatize the Tulsa Zoo and possibly seek a similar arrangement for the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.

"There's no reason why city employees couldn't compete for the opportunity to continue running the PAC," he said.

Simonson says it's not because the Performing Arts Center isn't run well, but just a question of whether it could be run better.

There's also a plan to offer cash incentives to city employees who find ways to run their own departments better.

Simonson told city councilors the auditors found multiple departments using grant writers and handling book keeping which could be done more efficiently in a single office.

Since the results of the audit will not be available until after the new budget is adopted, Simonson suggested some savings could be realized through changes to the budget after the new fiscal year begins.

The outside audit is being performed by KPMG and the $400,000 cost was donated by the Tulsa Community Foundation.

The city is ten weeks into the audit.  It's expected to take 16 weeks to finish.