Tulsa Mayor Working To Get Budget Cut Plans To Labor Unions

By Emory Bryan, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett told The News On 6 he hopes to get his plans for budget cuts to the labor unions on Tuesday.

The mayor says whether it's salary cuts or layoffs is largely up the labor unions, but regardless, he won't shield one department from cuts at the expense of another. 

So he won't protect police and fire, at the expense of much lower paid workers, in places like public works.

A three man crew dug through rock to get to a leaking water main on 21st Street. The job was one of 30 major leaks being handled Monday by Tulsa's water distribution department.

"The ground loosens up and we have breaks all over town it seems like," said Blaine Parnell, Tulsa Water Distribution.

The job pays about $10 an hour, but the water repair workers, and all of public works, is on the same chopping block as police and fire. They might end up with an across the pay cut, or a layoff that would further cut into the already scaled back workforce.

"We are staffed less today than we were 20 years ago, and we have 2,000 miles of main to maintain and 143,000 meters to service," said Blaine Parnell.

Under the current budget plan, every city department would share the cuts equally, and while public works doesn't get the same publicity as police and fire, many people would consider what they do to be just as critical for daily life.

Mayor Bartlett says he's still talking with public works about the plan, but says he doesn't want to see layoffs for front line employees, or see one department take more cuts than another.

"What we don't want to do is have all the other city employees take a hit and not police and fire participate in taking that hit, that's not fair. We certainly can't balance the budget on their backs," said Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett.

On Tuesday, the city council will discuss with public works how the layoffs would impact services like water line and pothole repairs.

1/10/2010  Related Story: TARE Board To Discuss City Of Tulsa's Funding Request