Mayor G.T. Bynum has revealed his new city budget, with is $845,800,000.00 and includes $100,000 for the “first phase” of an investigation of the possibility of mass graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot.

That riot was May 31-June 1, 1921, and dozens of deaths were confirmed while most of the Greenwood Business District was destroyed. Some theorists think that many more were killed and buried in mass graves in or around Tulsa.

The total budget proposal includes capital funding. The general fund, which funds the police and fire departments and other services, is expected to have $289.8 million in revenue.

The proposed budget is larger than the one in 2018. City officials are predicting growth in city revenue this year.

Last year, the city gave raises and increased benefits within the police and fire departments and gave at least a 10 percent increase for labor and trades employees.

For the Fire Department, the starting pay for new firefighters will increase to meet the average peer-city starting pay. New officers within the Tulsa Police Department will receive starting pay that matches the Oklahoma City Police Department.  The budget calls for hiring 90 new police officers and 25 firefighter cadets.

It creates money for the “office of the independent monitor” and for a new program – Housing Opportunity Partnership – to target vacant and abandoned houses.

Bynum wants more money for animal welfare shelters and funding to speed up approval of building permits. He is asking for more money for buses and street lighting.

Even though the chamber of commerce gets millions in funding from the city hotel/motel tax, Bynum’s budget calls for hiring a consultant for “economic development…”

The budget calls for new equipment and staffing for Chamberlain Recreation Center in North Tulsa and for eight mowing cycles this spring and summer.

Bynum plans to raise water rates by 9 percent – 2 percent higher than the 7-percent increases of the last few years.

The Tulsa City Council and must approve a budget for the upcoming fiscal year at least seven days prior to June 30, the end of the city’s fiscal year.