Several City of Tulsa officials are calling for a change in management of royalties, license fees and bonuses for a warranty program.
The city partnered with Service Line Warranties of America in 2014 to give residents voluntary water and sewer line insurance. Although Tulsa is the only participant, INCOG manages the revenue from that as if it were a regional program, with its board of directors approving expenditures from the fund the revenue goes into.
There’s a 50-cent per line cut for the city in the warranty program. Service Line Warranties of America gets to use the city logo on its solicitations for the program.
As of August, $345,477.93 has come into the INCOG fund, and nearly 86 percent of that was approved by INCOG for projects under Mayor Dewey Bartlett. That doesn’t sit well with Mayor G.T. Bynum.
"It shouldn't be this off-the-books fund that's out there at the mayor's discretion to utilize without the city council knowing how those funds are being used," Bynum said. "That's against every premise of our budgeting process at the city, and my administration is working right now to change it."
City Councilor David Patrick is on the fund’s advisory committee and said approved projects must have a regional benefit. For example, INCOG approved $55,000 from the fund to reimburse the city for hiring lobbyists to help with efforts to bring F-35 fighter jets to the Tulsa Oklahoma Air National Guard base.
Patrick said before leaving office, Bartlett also put in a request to partially fund a parks consolidation study. In its presentation to the city council this week on that study, Tulsa's Leadership Vision identified the service line warranty fund as a possible source of the city's $40,000 portion.
"INCOG probably needs to come to the city council and explain all the situation and stuff, but everything is above board. There's nothing shady or underhanded here," Patrick said.
Council Chair Anna America was among several city councilors caught off guard when the service line warranty fund was brought this week during a committee discussion involving the lobbyist reimbursement. She said it was the first time she's heard of the fund.
"We identified a number of priorities every budget year that are unfunded. In my opinion, if there was money available, we should have measured it up against those priorities and the council should have weighed in," America said. "That's our responsibility to spend and have oversight over the city budget."
Between water and sewer lines, the warranty program has more than 20,000 enrollments in Tulsa. More than 2,200 claims have been filed.
The service line warranty program is offered in 34 states.
