OETA Story on Tulsa City Employee Furloughs aired on 06/26/09

This is a story that aired on OETA Public Television's The Oklahoma News Report in Tulsa Oklahoma as reported by Lis Exon and photojournalist Edwin Wilson. For more information or to contact us, please go to www.oeta.tv The verbatim script follows below...

OKLAHOMA'S TWO LARGEST CITIES ARE EXPERIENCING THE DOWN-TURN IN THE ECONOMY VERY DIFFERENTLY.

WHILE OKLAHOMA CITY HAS AVOIDED LAYOFFS AND FURLOUGHS FOR CITY EMPLOYEES, IT IS QUITE A DIFFERENT STORY IN TULSA.

AS O-E-T-'A LIS EXON EXPLAINS, AN UNPRECEDENTED AGREEMENT REACHED YESTERDAY MEANS POLICE AND FIREFIGHERS ALONG WITH ALL CITY EMPPLOYEES OF TULSA WILL BE REQUIRED TO TAKE SEVERAL DAYS DAYS OFF WITH NO PAY.




JUST 24 HOURS AGO IT WASN'T KNOWN IF THIS POLICE ACADEMY OF TEN CADET WOULD GRADUATE TODAY OR NOT.

ALL TRAINERS AGREE THEY WERE EXEMPLARY CADETS BUT AN EMPASS WITH THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE OVER THE CITY BUDGET HAD THEIR FUTURES IN LIMBO.

THEN A BREAK-THOUGH IN TALKS YESTERDAY EVENING...THE F-O-P AGREED TO A TOTAL OF 64 FURLOUGH HOURS FOR EACH POLICE OFFICER DURING THIS NEXT FISCAL YEAR.

Police Chief Ron Palmer: And our last opportunity and the thing was, where we didn't want to go was layoffs and had we had to have gone there if that agreement had not been reached yesterday we would have ended up not only cutting this class but probably another 30 plus officer. OFFICERS WILL SCHEDULE THE UNPAID DAYS OFF LIKE THEY WERE VACATION.

THE FIREFIGHTERS UNION REPS ALSO STEPPED UP TO THE PLATE LAST NIGHT AND AGREED TO FURLOUGH DAYS.




Stan May/Firefighters Union We are still going to provide the same level of service we are just going to roll back our price. You know our compensation is being rolled back to match hat the city is going through. IF THE FIREFIGHTERS AND POLICE OFFICERS RATIFY THEIR UNIONS AGREEMENT WITH THE MAYOR (AND THEY ARE EXPECTED TO),

THEY WILL JOIN 4,000 MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES WHO HAD ALREADY AGREED TO TAKE 8 DAYS OFF WITHOUT PAY. MAYOR TAYLOR KATHY TAYLOR SAYS IT AMOUNTS TO A 3.1% PAY-CUT. STILL, SHE SAYS IT IS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.. So ultimately no one lost their job. That was vitally important and each of those furlough days saved us I think about eight million dollars to help us with that budget deficit. CITY HALL WAS FACING A BUDGET SHORTFALL OF 14-MILLION DOLLARS BEFORE THE EMPLOYEE CONCESSIONS.

MAYOR TAYLOR SAYS THE DEPRESSED ECONOMY DRAMATICALLY DECREASED SALES TAX REVENUES IN TULSA WHICH MAKE UP THE BULK OF CITY MONEY.




SHE SAYS OKLAHOMA CITY IS FAIRING MUCH BETTER FURING THESE TOUGH FINANCIAL TIMES. Their sales tax increased two and a half percent, they had a flat budget they had no pay increases, at all for their city employees out budget sales tax has decreased and so they've developed a broader retail base their downtown is probably 10 years ahead of our downtown so its basically the stability of that basic source of revenue sales tax. POLICE CHIEF RON PALMER SAYS WHILE THEY HAVE DODGED THE BULLET FOR NOW, LAYOFFS MAY STILL BE A POSSIBILITY DEPENDING ON WHAT SALES TAX REVENUES DO IN THE COMING MONTHS.

IN THE MEANTIME, HE AND OTHER CITY LEADERS ARE BREATHING A COLLECTIVE SIGH OF RELIEF.

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