Budget woahs

City fun and city funding in post-Recession Tulsa

Since the Great Recession crashed our economic party in Dec. 2007, cable news networks have locked into a years-long blame game. Aggressively blond pundits fuss nightly over what kind of economy Obama inherited – or created.

Depending on the channel, I can’t tell whether the bad times have ended or just begun. Timelines are melted down and re-molded to suit political agendas. Every talking head worth his coif is crossing fingers you’re too tired from your second job to Google any of this stuff, anyway. Thanks, Obama.

We spare you the depths of global recession here. We’re more worried about economic recovery IRL – right here, right now. In that spirit, we cracked open the zillion-odd-page Tulsa city budget, the slim-and-trim $688.1 million plan (shrunk 2 percent from current year) passed on June 20, now available online for anyone with a bored-to-death wish.

The budget’s story reflects a middle-size, middle-of-the-nation city muddling through, fighting—sometimes with each other—to make ends meet in lean times. It wasn’t pretty. Bartlett’s original budget included some painful cuts to public transit and the arts. There were protests, there was outcry. The council countered with some stop-gaps.

The get-along gang attempted to get more realistic about future sales tax revenues; bump up our water, sewer, stormwater, and EMSA rates; drop roughly 150 city jobs, 127 of which are vacant; throw money toward Visit Tulsa marketing to fish for more tourism dollars; try to task-force their way into more public-private collaborations; and hold off on police and fire academies for the next fiscal year.

In a May 1 letter to the City Council, Mayor Bartlett gave a delightfully brief history of the recession vis-à-vis Tulsa. Our mayor and our president have (maybe just this one) thing in common: they both inherited a busted economy. Hey, if Bartlett and Obama can agree on something, it must be true, right?

On the subject of his economic inheritance, Tulsa’s mayor said:

“A significant global recession began in 2008. While the recession arrival was delayed in Tulsa, it did impact the local economy significantly. Tulsa has steadily improved since the low point. The unemployment rate in March of 2010 was 7.5 percent. Last March it was 5.6 percent and it currently stands at 5.3 percent…Real estate sales have improved and foreclosures have fallen to less than the national levels. Last year at the end of March the sales tax for the fiscal year was growing at a rate of 2.8 percent. Despite the overall good condition of the economy the city has seen a near leveling of its sales tax revenues.”

Bottomline: So much of Tulsa’s budget—about a third—depends on sales taxes, not exactly a stable flow of cash in these uncertain times. A city can’t make money off sales taxes when no one can afford to buy anything. It’s not sexy enough for primetime. It’s not click bait. But this is where we’re at – and, until we can agree on something better, it’s a place to start. 

Four fingers pointing back at you
Gov. Mary Fallin and Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, were in the U.S. House when the now-maligned immigration policy, which led to our current child immigration crisis now manifested at Fort Sill, passed unanimously in Congress in 2008. The bill was signed by George W. Bush. Thanks, Obama? (Hat tip to The Oklahoman, “Obama gets blame, but 2008 bill set procedures for dealing with young illegal immigrants”)

Righteous indignance alerts
A recent study ranking energy-expensive states put the Sooner State 5th on the list. Oklahoma, where the oil drillers come sweeping down the plain? We should be able to swim in pools of black gold around here, but lower prices don’t always mean lower costs; consumption is key. Most of us sun-fried Okies love to bask in that greatest human invention, electric ice-cold air conditioning – until the corresponding summer electric bill shows up.

Murder is my best angle
A&E is filming its reality hit “The First 48” on the mean streets of Tulsa. A camera crew is following homicide detectives as they work a case. The 918 episode is scheduled to air this fall. Watching TPD’s finest solve a murder mystery? Sounds like an open and shut case—of entertainment.

Unclench
Forget red, Oklahoma is an “uptight” state. A recent study shows how states differ politically, not on a blue-and-red scale, but in a special, highly scientific tightness-looseness matrix. Oklahoma, ranked 4th-most-uptight state in the union, clenches hard to its conservative social values, enforced social norms (the ban on gay marriage), dry counties, strict drug laws (you’ll be slapped with a felony for any amount of marijuana sales), and a penchant for natural disasters (oh, hi, Tornado Alley). Each of the most uptight states were in the Deep South, while the loosest were in coastal or mountain regions.