A trendline analysis of monthly City of Tulsa municipal citations from 2007 through 2009 and of daily citations from October 1, 2009, to January 14, 2010, shows a significant decline.

Trendline analysis shows the general trend over time for statistics that may vary widely on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis. The trendline for monthly totals from January 2007 through December 2009 shows a decline from roughly 12,000 citations to about 8500. The drop appears to be more precipitous over the last four months, based on the trendline of daily statistics from about 350 citations per day in early October to about 160 in mid-January.

Download the data in Excel format:

City of Tulsa Municipal Court Citations Issued by Day, January 2007 through December 2009

City of Tulsa Municipal Court Citations Issued by Day, October 1, 2009, through January 14, 2010

On January 5, 2010, Tulsan Scott Davis wrote to Councilor John Eagleton with his thoughts on the causes behind Tulsa's fiscal crisis and some suggestions for improving the situation. With Mr. Davis's permission, here is his e-mail:

Dear Mr. Eagleton:

I have heard a boatload of talk about Tulsa City budget cuts and everyone is missing the Elephant in the room. The reason Tulsa’s budget dollars have fallen is three-fold:

    #1 People are spending a ton of money at casinos. Those dollars are being taken away from City Sales Taxes because people are purchasing far fewer goods and services locally. The Oklahoma Indian casinos took in $2.8BILLION last year – the Tulsa Area’s portion has to be at least $400 Million. At a 3 cent sales tax rate we just lost $14 Million in tax revenues per year.

    #2 Spending money on Lottery tickets. Again this takes away from goods and services people would buy in Tulsa which lowers city sales tax revenues.

    #3 Internet shopping. This also takes away from goods and services people would buy in Tulsa and lowers city sales tax revenues.

    In addition to the 3 items above, every dollar that is spent on local goods and services gets multiplied several times as it re-invests its way into our economy – this is all lost on the hundreds of millions spent in casinos, lottery tickets and internet shopping.

Possible Solutions:

    #1 Conduct an ongoing “buy locally” advertising campaign. The ads should show how buying locally helps fund the police and fire departments, helps employ people in Tulsa and has a multiplying effect as money is plowed back into our economy.

    #2 Have the Mayor work with the Indian Casinos to see if they would pay $10 to $15 million per year so that we don’t have to layoff policemen and firemen. The Indians are getting all of our money and as a result we have fewer dollars to pay for policemen & fire. A few million is peanuts to these Casinos.

    #3 If the Indians won’t pony up the few million, we should conduct a public campaign against throwing away your dollars gambling at the casinos. The ads should show how this has reduced funds available for police & fire, caused people to lose their homes and their jobs, etc.

Thanks,
Scott Davis - Tulsa

Councilor Jim Mautino has prepared a brief summary of the performance review and assessment of the Tulsa Public Works Department. This outline will be followed by the City Council's Public Works Committee in coming weeks to track the progress of the Public Works Department in implementing the review's recommendations.

Public Works Audit Presentation -- Summary of Main Points

• Engineering
  • Engineering Services does not track employees’ time on projects.
  • According to field engineers, work plans are not developed for larger projects .
  • Design changes are made to meet schedules without following established procedures.
  • Invoices for these changes are approved without understanding and documenting impacts.

• Inspections
  • Work load is not balanced among inspectors because of differences in qualifications or experience.
  • Inspectors can be over-ruled on issues.
  • Inspectors desire more support from Design Engineering.
  • The Inspectors require additional training and direction

• Organizational Structure
  • The organizational structure for coordinating work with other agencies and utilities is in place, however the utilities do not always participate.
  • Preventive maintenance is contracted out and managed by the Engineering Division.
  • The Street Maintenance Section focuses on other activities such as responding to the Mayor’s Action Center and Councilors’ requests, special project work, and work for other departments

• Change
  • The organizational culture is resistant to change.
  • Communication is limited.
  • Consolidation of Information Management and Administrative Services was not well received.
  • During interviews several staff members commented on perceived lower service levels.
  • Monthly budgeting documents provide some reporting.
  • The Statistical Report lists project status and some activities such as pothole repair. No other documents were found or provided that measured the performance of the Street Maintenance Section, Engineering Services, or individual staff.

• Management
  • Information moves through the organization one level at a time.
  • Senior Managers have little direct interaction with staff.
  • Management has many layers and is hierarchical.
  • There are four levels of management including the Deputy Director, eight managers, and supervisors.
  • Supervisor/manager to Labor/Trades ratio is 1:6.
  • Group lacks communication both vertically and horizontally.
  • Senior managers have little direct interaction with staff more than one level below them.

• Strategic Plan
  • A Strategic Technology Plan is not available.
  • Technology in Public Works is ad hoc. Lack of I T integration, standards and governance impact:
  • The ability to coordinate and share information.
  • The ability to track assets across divisions.
  • Public Works lacks the strategic technology systems needed to drive performance improvement.

• I.T.
  • The goal of City I T is to consolidate applications.
  • The diversity of business applications within Public Works makes it difficult for I T to provide business agents to support them.
  • Many technology systems are aging and are no longer compatible with the implemented technology, limiting the ability to share information and track performance.

• Internal Tracking
  • Streets Maintenance, Water Distribution, and Underground Collections use different work order systems that are not integrated.
  • The I Q system does not directly tie into the work order system, but rather through the e-mail system, by-passing planning and scheduling. As a result, much non-emergency work is done as emergency work.
  • Documents provided for tracking work and projects were mostly MSExcel spread sheets, MS Word documents, MS Project, or MS Access databases; none of them roll up to provide a single view of performance of function or department.
  • No documentation was provided to show the existence of an asset management strategy and program.

• Ratio
  • Streets
    • 46 Maintenance Staff
    • 5 Managers / Supervisors
  • Engineering
    • 33 Engineering Staff
    • 20 Managers / Supervisors

• Ideas/Suggestions
  • There does not appear to be an openness for new ideas, suggestions, or training and development which are key components of a learning culture required for change.
  • Excessive red tape and resistance to change could hinder process improvement
  • Develop a plan to reduce Supervisor / LT (Labor/Trades) ratio from 1:6 to 1:15 by implementing a team-based organization.
  • Establish teams of employees.
  • Team training for LTs.
  • Leadership development for Managers and Supervisors.
  • Implement management by walking around.
  • Attend front-line staff meetings on a regularly scheduled basis
  • Hold regular communications meetings
  • Celebrate achievements
  • Require all project team members to electronically track their time.
  • Implement an enterprise time and attendance system.
  • Address field data access needs.
  • Tracking and reporting systems for productivity and performance evaluation

The electronic citation system (also known as E-Tickets) should be fully implemented this year to prevent further erosion of City of Tulsa revenues, according to an analysis of the impact of the system in other cities. 

Tulsa PD is short $3.4 million in Budget with no layoffs today. San Diego lost approximately $1,000,000 per 100 officers it let go in 2005 or $2,000,000 in real hard dollars to the general fund. The next year, with less revenue they could be in the same situation and have to reduce ranks again. Tulsa is proposing a 120-200 officer reduction which in today's dollars is approx $13,500,000 swing in lost revenue and cost savings by not fast tracking E-Tickets today. This is the wrong direction and the PATTERN WILL REPEAT year after year.

E-Tickets is in testing Phase 1 currently in the Tulsa Police Department. All phases of E-Tickets must be put on fast track and fully deployed to achieved the cost savings and new revenue streams it produces through efficiencies and availability to serve the public faster. Tulsa Police Chief mentioned in Tulsa World that a funding source is needed to stop the layoffs, Tulsa has had it all along (3 years so far and now just in testing mode).

Approximate revenue and cost savings lost is $36,000,000 to date and now we could be in a position, with less budget, to fully deploy this solution.

E-Tickets is the FUNDING SOURCE NEEDED that will fix this problem.

The analysis is based on the following assumptions:

The analysis quotes a November 30, 2006, story from canada.com on the deployment of E-Tickets in Montreal:

An $8-million investment that launched a specialized police traffic squad at the start of this year has already hit financial pay dirt for the cash-strapped City of Montreal. It’s proven to be a bonanza – pulling in an extra $22.8 million in traffic tickets. The city has anted up another $2.7 million in its 2007 budget to add 40 constables and five supervisors to the 133-cop traffic squad next year.

By comparison, in 2005 San Diego cut the size of its police force, resulting in fewer tickets being written and further revenue loss, according to a November 25, 2006, story in the San Diego Union:

For the second straight year, San Diego police officers are writing fewer traffic tickets.

The reason: Fewer cops. Not the reason: Better drivers.

“We are down about 200 officers,” San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne .

Less ticket writing also means less revenue for the city.

Ticket fines range from $100 to $1,000, and most of the money goes into San Diego's general fund.

The loss in 2005 was estimated at $2 million.

The analysis predicts these consequences of Tulsa's decision to defer full implementation of E-Tickets:

• Tulsa should be in the same position as the City of Montreal today 120-200 less officers on the streets of Tulsa
• $3.4 million in lost police budget that could have been prevented with E-Tickets in place
• Less police presence will produce more accidents, crime and more moving violations that are not going to be caught and a citation issued
• A less safe city lowers sales tax revenue with less shopping traffic into the city
• A less safe city bring down property value and reduce property tax revenue
• So far, $36,000,000 in lost revenue and cost savings to the general fund over 3 years without E-Tickets fully in place today
• The potential to lose the ability to fund E-Tickets this year for all phases and full deployment due to less budget from the previous year (and trending downward)
• High probability that this trend of layoff and lower revenue will continue downward going forward over the next 4-5 years