Mayor Kathy Taylor has already cut $13 million from the budget, but needs to cut $5 million more.
Taylor says the city could save almost $1.3 million by adding two more furlough days, for a total of six.
But the firefighters' union says the cost that has on public safety is far greater.
"An area of town that had an engine company within four minutes, now they may be eight, nine, ten minutes away before they receive service. We just can't accept that," said Stan May, The firefighters' union president.
May says in a fire every minute counts.
"Every minute that your house is on fire it doubles in size. If we're not there within the first four or five minutes, the chance of someone surviving that's left in the building is very small," said May.
Tulsa City Councilor, Bill Christiansen, shares May's concern.
"When you take a furlough day, I don't care how you swipe it, it's going to affect public safety," said Christiansen.
Still, May says the department is looking at rearranging vacation days to help with the furlough.
The mayor is also trying to save money by getting additional funding to pay for police at special events.
To do that, the city would add a $2 surcharge for special event parking and a dollar charge on PAC tickets, that is something Christiansen can live with.
"The police chief does need additional money generated by the venues downtown to pay for the additional overtime that he needs to pay for, for the downtown security during special events," said Christiansen.
But Christiansen takes issue with the mayor adding non-critical position, such as the legislative affairs job, which pays $80,000 a year.
"She's trying to grow city government during a time of a recession at the expense of public safety," said Christiansen.
Still, the Mayor's Office says it's important that Tulsa is represented in federal and state government issues.
The mayor will propose an additonal $5 million in cuts next week for a "worst case senario" basis. In all that would mean $23 million dollar shortfall.
The council has until June 23rd to pass a budget.
