Press - Taylor Presents FY 2009 Budget Cost-Saving Measures Address Flat Revenues

Mayor Kathy Taylor presented her executive budget for the City of Tulsa’s Fiscal Year 2008-2009 on Thursday, May 1 at the 6 p.m. regular Tulsa City Council meeting in the Francis Campbell Room.

Despite nearly flat general fund revenue, Mayor Taylor said the proposed budget addresses the Tulsa City Council compendium of needs and continues to emphasize her long-stated priorities of public safety, economic development, education and streets. The FY 09 budget covers the rising costs of energy while also prioritizing funding of police and fire academies and providing annual raises for City employees to move salaries closer to market.

“Our team has never been so focused on crunching the numbers and holding the line on increases, and leveraging resources by working across department lines and with private groups that have similar objectives,” Taylor said.

Taylor said partnerships with the private sector and the training of 300 City employees to implement high performance government practices made it possible to balance the budget and propose additional public safety academies.

“Our focus is on growing partnerships, not government, and we are making progress,” Taylor said. “Our priorities have not changed – public safety, economic development, education and streets – and they encompass the Council’s compendium of needs.”

The Citizen-led Save Our Streets Committee is an example of a successful partnership that led to an action-oriented plan for streets. Taylor also credited Councilor Bill Martinson for reviewing the recommendations to develop a “thoughtful and fiscally responsible” package to fix the streets and prevent further deterioration. Other partnerships over the past year included working with local golfers to reduce costs on City owned courses, which resulted in a contract with Billy Casper Golf and savings to taxpayers of $337,000 this year. Another success is the partnership with the University of Tulsa to manage the Gilcrease Museum of Art. In both cases, the City retains ownership of these assets, but manages costs by partnering with the private sector.

The total budget, which includes both capital and operating funds, is $591 million, an increase of 3.7 percent. The operating budget which includes expenditures, such as personnel, totals $528 million. Sales tax collections were up slightly, by about 3 percent, this year, but continuing general revenue is expected to grow by only one percent in the next fiscal year.

Taylor noted that the City will continue to face challenges in energy costs. In the current fiscal year consumption was down before the December ice storm. The ice storm cost the City $24 million. The FY 2009 budget will reflect FEMA reimbursement as a one-time revenue source. The FEMA reimbursement will be used to replenish the reserves used for the storm response and recovery.

The City is working to hold down fuel cost increases by purchasing vehicles that get better gas mileage, including hybrids, and those that use alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas. The City recently purchased its first CNG refuse truck.

Taylor said the City management continues to seek innovative revenue sources. Aggressive marketing of office space in the new City Hall, One Technology Center, is underway. A more innovative trend is the leasing of fiber optic conduit. The City is installing 33,000 linear feet, or 6.25 miles, of conduit in the rights of way downtown to support broadband technology that will bring connectivity to 85 percent of the buildings in the downtown area. Negotiations for the conduit leasing are underway.

The newly realigned Real Estate and Economic Development Division will focus its efforts on retail growth and marketing City-owned buildings that will be vacated as a result of the move to One Technology Center. The group will also work with the Tulsa Development Authority to aggressively market publicly-owned properties for private redevelopment.

Taylor’s presentation outlined cost-saving measures, revenue enhancements and other achievements for the current fiscal year as well as ways in which the City staff is addressing the Council Compendium of Needs goals and objectives.

“Over the last year we have introduced some new approaches to meet our challenges, including cost savings measures such as high performance government and LEAN business processes,” said Taylor. “These are tried and true in the business sector and are working in city government. The budget for the City of Tulsa is reflective of the economic conditions being experienced by the rest of the state, but we are creating more efficiencies and are working to enhance customer services in our priority areas.”

Taylor noted that Gov. Brad Henry recently announced a standstill budget agreement because of a shortfall in the state’s tax collections.

Mayor Taylor’s presentation is available for reading online at http://www.cityoftulsa.org/OurCity/Mayor/documents/MayorKathyTaylorFY08-09BudgetSpeech5-1-08.pdf.