Tulsa Mayor Presents Next Year's Billion Dollar Budget To City Council

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum presented the city’s budget to the Tulsa City Council Wednesday and for the first time, it’s more than one billion dollars.

Some of the specific items are pay increases for city employees, operating the new Zink Lake, and creating a new position to help with homeless programs.

Bynum said his main goal with the budget is to give the next mayor a good place to start and make sure they won’t have to dig themselves out of a financial hole.

The proposed budget for this year is $1.023 billion, up from $966 million last year.

"This is our first time to cross the billion-dollar mark, which is remarkable when you see budgets from decades ago, how much it's grown,” said Bynum.

Bynum says the budget will cover 2% pay increases for city employees, including first responders, make sure Zink Lake has the staff it needs for a Labor Day opening and replace highway lights with LEDs.

It will also pay for the salary of a person to help with homeless programs.

"One of the things that the council and I have heard from a lot of service providers and first responders is the need for somebody at the city that is helping coordinate, especially the encampment cleanups that we're doing a lot more of now than we might have been a couple of years ago,” said Bynum.

The budget also calls for water, sewer, stormwater, and trash prices to increase.

State law requires Tulsa to have a balanced budget.

"We haven't had a new mayor come in without a budget deficit since, I think, 1992,” said Bynum. “It's really important to me that whoever wins the mayor's race this year, that they come in, and they aren't having to climb out of a hole."

Bynum is not running for mayor again, so this budget will be the new mayor’s also.

"I will only be mayor for about five months of this budget,” said Bynum. “The new mayor will get sworn in on December 2nd, and I want things ready for them to be successful on day one."

The next step is for the council to talk about it, and people can give their opinions during public hearings.

It has to be approved before the last week of June.

For more information on the budget, visit the city council website here.