City of Tulsa departments have been asked to scale back their fiscal year 2022 plans 3% to help balance the budget.
CFO James Wagner said the city can’t repeat actions from this fiscal year, like using reserve funds and furloughing employees. Steps departments could take include eliminating vacant positions.
Wagner said whether that’s temporary or permanent should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
"Sometimes, I think it’s appropriate just to not fill them for now. The problem is that since we have a two-year cycle, by doing that, you kind of push that issue on to fiscal year 23, and then it becomes difficult to balance the following year’s planned budget," Wagner said.
Estimated FY22 revenues are currently $6.7 million dollars behind expenditures and almost $10 million short when department requests are added into the equation. Federal coronavirus relief to offset local government revenue losses is a possibility, but Wagner said there isn’t an appetite to put relief funds toward ongoing costs.
"If those revenues are made available, I think we have to be really careful about recognizing that those are one-time revenues. And so, I think that the objective, really, here is to balance our recurring revenues with the recurring expenses of the general fund side of government," Wagner said.
State law requires the city to have a balanced budget. The city council and Mayor G.T. Bynum will craft the FY22 budget over the next few months.
