Mayor Dewey Bartlett's Office Over Budget, City Councilors Learn

By Emory Bryan, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- The City of Tulsa is back to a balanced budget, after making $25 million in cuts. But city councilors learned Wednesday there's a thin margin of cash.

The councilors say they were also stunned to learn there's not enough money in the mayor's budget to pay all the people on his staff.

No one at City Hall knows the budget better than Pat Connelly, City of Tulsa budget director.

"We got our October and November checks and knew we had a problem," Connelly said, speaking of the city's tax revenue disbursements.

2/2/2010 Related Story: Tulsa City Council Discusses Budget Cuts

The budget director says the city has never had to cut $25 million dollars from the budget in a single year, much less in just six months.

"The decline in revenue has been so fast and so steep, that has been unprecedented," he added.

At a two-hour budget briefing, city councilors went over income and expenses line by line. They were startled to hear the city is down to $1 million in reserve because spending couldn't be cut fast enough.

"No, I'm probably going to have a hard time sleeping now," said City Councilor Chris Trail. "Knowing our reserve is down to a million dollars is scary to think about."

The real surprise for councilors was to hear that the mayor's office is over budget by about $140,000 for the year - in part because Mayor Bartlett kept some of Mayor Kathy Taylor's staff.

"Mayor Taylor's office budget could not have been sustained for the fiscal year either," said City Budget Director Pat Connelly.

Some councilors were upset at the revelation.

"It's follow my lead, or do as I do," said Bill Christiansen, City Councilor.

But Mayor Bartlett had an unlikely defender in Councilor Jack Henderson.

"I'm thinking that means changes in some political appointees, paying them less than the people there now, that will bring them in line and solve the problem," said City Councilor Jack Henderson.

The mayor's office says Bartlett will take an 8.5% cut in his salary, and has cut 6.5% from the office budget with more cuts in the works.

The city saved some money by the change of police chiefs, cutting the salary by $60,000 a year.

See City Of Tulsa Budget Charts (Explained below)

#1 The growth of the city budget has outpaced the rate of inflation. 

#2 Salaries have grown unequally across departments, but in almost all cases have grown by rates much greater than inflation.