TULSA, Okla. — Mayor Monroe Nichols proposed a $1.22 billion budget to the city council during its April 22 meeting.
Nichols says he wants the budget to reflect three principles: Consistency, accountability and clarity.
2 News Oklahoma examined each of those, starting with consistency.
The 2025-26 city budget totaled $1.11 billion. Nichols’ 2026-27 proposal totals $1.22 billion; representing a 10% increase.
Looking at accountability – 2 News Oklahoma sought to find out, how the proposal will fix the city’s biggest issues.
Nichols says Tulsa’s Code Enforcement office needs help.
2 News Oklahoma heard the same from Dori Kurtsigner, telling 2 News Oklahoma’s Cathy Tatom, the office won’t take duplicate complaints.
LISTENING TO YOU >>> Dori Kurtsinger called 2 News Oklahoma looking for accountability for Code Enforcement
“[The City employee] explained to me, because somebody had already filed a complaint in May, that they would not take my complaint in July,” Kurtsinger said in August 2025.
That policy likely traces back to a 90-day backlog. Nichols wants to get response time down to thirty days.
“Last year was not a year we could do a whole bunch of adding,” Nichols said, “As we do with every issue, that’s persistent, we ask ourselves: What is it actually gonna take to solve it?”
City leadership thinks 4 new code enforcement officers a $550 thousand budget influx will help solve the issues.
Finally, looking at clarity, the budget would create a big change to Tulsa’s emergency response. The budget, if passed as proposed, would mark the end of TAEMA as neighbors know it.
The budget includes money to create three emergency management positions. Currently, the city partners with Tulsa County to operate an emergency management office.
“TAEMA will be gone,” Nichols said.
“We were an outlier, of cities our size, even cities in this area, that had the setup that we had. We sat down with the county …. We all reached the same agreement that finding ways that we partner together but the City have our own emergency management department was gonna be critical for us moving forward.”
The city council will work to finalize the details and approve the final budget package.
“I think we’ve put forth a really responsible proposal, that helps us make progress,” Nichols said.
The budget also includes funding for 55 new police officers and 22 new firefighters. It allocates $6.5 million of Vision Tulsa funds to addressing homelessness. The proposal earmarks $25 million for Tulsa to move into a new Public Safety Center, at the old State Farm call center in East Tulsa.
The full, detailed budget is available at this link.
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