Tulsa Mayor Announces $15K Signing Bonus For New Police Officers As Recruiting Drops

Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum announced several new initiatives to help improve recruiting within the Tulsa Police Department during his State of the City address on Tuesday.

His biggest announcement was a $15,000 sign-on bonus for Tulsa Police Academy Graduates. The city needs about 950 officers and only has about 815 as of November 15. Mayor Bynum says the department continues to lose more each month including about four to five a month to retirement.

Bynum also announced that over the next year the police department will establish a Real Time Information Center, which he says will help officers catch criminals quicker using video technology. He says the license plate readers the department installed earlier this year have led to more than 50 arrests and more than 600 thousand dollars in recovered stolen property, including 60 stolen vehicles.