Tulsa city councilors want more money in the budget.
Sales tax growth was higher than expected, and every tenth of a percent put into the general fund adds about $150,000 to the 2015 budget. Finance director Mike Kier says he's comfortable with a 0.3 percent increase after seeing data behind recent collections.
"When we start talking about whole percentage point changes in the sales tax, we don't have technical data, analyzed data that would support that level of change right now," Kier said.
Chair Karen Gilbert says the city council could use the extra money to fund priorities under a conservative budget.
"And we want to stay in that realm of being conservative, but is there a little bit of a window to where we can bump those projections up just, you know, a skosh, and still be conservative," Gilbert said.
Councilors are looking at a list of funding needs totaling between $700,000 and $2.3 million dollars. All are existing cuts that would be undone.
Among the cuts councilors are looking to stop are reductions in bus service hours, fewer crossing guards and the closing of a kids' theatre program.
