Besides recognizing accomplishments of the past year, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum announced several new plans Thursday in his first state of the city address.
The city will push state lawmakers next year to eliminate a provision in the education funding formula that takes away state funding if local governments spend property taxes on things like boosting teacher salaries or hiring more teachers.
"We have unbelievable superintendents locally who I think could take us to tops in the nation," Bynum said. "But they don't have the resources that they need to do that, and I would like Tulsans simply to have the opportunity to fund those resources if Tulsans want to do that."
Local governments are allowed to use property tax funding without penalty for things like school buildings and certain supplies, like laptops or tablets for students.
Another initiative is mean to spur real estate development. The City of Tulsa will embrace self-certification to reform what Bynum calls a cumbersome process.
Rather than building plans going through city offices for approval, qualified local architects and engineers will review them. Bynum said that could speed up approval from a month or more to just a few days.
"It's reforming the front end of the process, which is where I hear most of the concern in our development community around. People feel like our inspectors on the back end do a very good job, and we would keep that in place," Bynum said.
The city will still issue a certificate of occupancy, and up to 20 percent of self-certifications will be audited. Architects and engineers not meeting standards won't be allowed to review plans. High-risk projects, like high-rise buildings, won’t be eligible for the program.
The city and county are going to embark upon a new joint endeavor hinted at for years. Bynum and County Commissioner Ron Peters are forming a City-County Parks Realignment Commission. Bynum said city-county authorities have been successful at running the health department, library system and River Parks.
"Now, we want to have a public and transparent review of potential merger of different aspects of our parks systems into one, healthy, accessible, well-maintained system for future generations of Tulsans," Bynum said.
Park consolidation has been on the back burner since Tulsa County approved its portion of funding for a study almost a year ago.
Bynum announced two other initiatives Thursday: a polling system to get more citizen input on what the city should be doing and the formation of a street improvement task force chaired by former Oklahoma Secretary of Transportation Gary Ridley. The task force will look for ways to streamline street projects and their related utility work, and to minimize the impact of construction on drivers.
