Curtis Killman
Tulsa World Staff Writer
Mike Simons
Tulsa World Staff Photographer
Correction: This story originally misstated the amount of a proposed across-the-board pay raise for city employees. The story has been corrected.
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum presented a $1 billion-plus spending plan for fiscal 2025 to the City Council on Wednesday that includes employee pay raises, utility rate hikes, improved highway lighting and a more aggressive road improvement plan.
The $1,023,445,000 fiscal 2025 proposed budget is a 4.1% increase from the $982.6 million budget approved in fiscal 2024. The measure now goes to the City Council for consideration.
The Council historically approves the mayor’s proposed budget with few changes.
Bynum described his proposed budget as “prudent” in that it doesn’t leave the next mayor in a fiscal hole and “protects” recent raises given to city employees.
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“That’s how we recruit and retain the best public servants in any city in the country,” Bynum said following the budget presentation.
The proposed budget recommends 2% salary increases to all employees except sworn police and fire employees, for whom compensation packages are negotiated separately.
A work crew replaces lights on the Broken Arrow Expressway as traffic passes on Wednesday. Mayor G.T. Bynum’s proposed budget includes money for the start of a two-year highway lighting improvement plan.
The budget also calls for rate increases for all city utilities for some customers. It recommends 3% increases in water and sewer rates, along with 9% and 15% increases in trash and stormwater rates respectively.
Bynum said the water and sewer rate increases will cover increased costs, while the stormwater and trash rate increases are designed to recoup revenues lost due to deferred spending.
Water rate increases will be limited largely to industrial customers and those who live outside the city limits.
There will be no water rate increase for city of Tulsa residential customers, Bynum said.
The budget also kick starts a two-year highway lighting improvement plan.
Bynum said 93% of highway lights were inoperable when he took office. The city now has dedicated crews that maintain the lights, thanks to a PSO franchise agreement approved by voters.
The city of Tulsa now has dedicated crews that maintain lights on city-maintained highways.
The spending plan also aims to rebuild the city’s budget reserve. The city in recent years has sought to set aside 10% of its budget as a Rainy Day Fund.
Clean up costs from the 2023 Father’s Day windstorm forced city officials to dip into reserve funds this year, Bynum said.
Bynum said his proposed budget will get the reserve to nearly $23 million, or 8.5% of the city budget, by June 30, 2025.
Bynum also plans to nearly double the city’s road building capacity with $100 million in street work in FY 2025.
Widening 91st Street from Memorial Drive to Mingo Road is one of the major projects slated to get underway.
Traffic navigates around a work crew as it replaces lights on the Broken Arrow Expressway on Wednesday.
The budget also provides:
- Funding to hire someone to coordinate city homeless initiatives.
- Funds to operate a new jail when the existing one is relocated from the Police Courts Building.
- Funds to pay for 60 police academy recruits and one fire training academy. The city has a target of 943 sworn police officers. It currently has 805 sworn officers.
Bynum said the proposed budget funds all city park facilities with no closures planned.
He told the Tulsa World that the city is dropping a $15,000 signing bonus for new police recruits instituted this current fiscal year after determining that the incentive did not appreciably increase the number of recruits who made it through the academy.
The 2025 fiscal year begins July 1.
City workers are raised in a bucket to replace a light on the Broken Arrow Expressway.
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