Yeah, that's right.

I feel like we're all right.

All right.

We call this meeting to order.

Welcome.

It's 10 30-ish on May the 20th, 2026.

First item up is Katie O'Milia, appointed to the Arts Commission for the City of Tulsa.

Good morning.

How are you?

Take a seat right next to Chris.

Okay.

And then we'd love to learn more about you and why you want to serve on the Arts Commission, what the plans and hopes and dreams are for the Arts Commission and everything else.

You just want me to dive in.

Well, a little bit about me.

I am born and raised here in Oklahoma.

I attended Oklahoma State University for my undergraduate degree in landscape architecture.

I also hold a master's in urban design from the University of Utah, and have been practicing both for a little over 18 years.

My husband and I moved back to Tulsa in 2017.

So I've been a practicing landscape architect and urban designer working here in Tulsa in our region for since then.

And yeah, in terms of the arts commission, I think one, thank you for the um for the nomination.

That's a that's his job.

Oh well, thank you, Mayor, for the nomination.

Um yeah, the reason I think that it appeals to me and I agreed to serve on it, is when I threw just my practice um with TSW, working on projects with the city, long-range planning, um, working with engineering.

I feel like I'm really well equipped to understand a lot of uh capital projects and um sort of the process of those projects.

Um, and then as a landscape architect, I feel like I have this you know design sense that I work within every day.

And so, you know, it's really rewarding, I think, to be able to apply those to the communities that you live in to make it a better place.

Okay, so yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's awesome.

Um, thank you.

And I think those talents are really, really necessary.

If uh any of my colleagues ever have anything uh nice to say about me at the end of my service to our city, they'll be like, man, that guy was all about scaping.

Landscaping, lightscaping, picking up, yeah.

It's all very important.

There, I think.

It is, it is.

No, and it really it really does um help the aesthetics of our city in so many ways.

So so few people really think about it, but when you see good landscaping and hardscaping, lightscaping and everything else, then you know it.

I mean you're you're really drawn to go to those areas.

So I think your um your role on the arts commission is a really important one.

There's artists of all kinds, but but you bring a different kind of practical sense to um what what service you'll provide as well.

Anyone have any comments, questions?

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you very, very much for your email.

Um, yeah, uh, the council will take this up on June the 3rd.

You can come to our council meeting if you want to, but you don't have to come if you don't want to.

All right, great.

Well, thank you all for me.

Next up is Angelica Reina.

Exactly.

Uh reappointment to the Greater Tulsa area Hispanic.

What's that?

Can I see?

Oh, yes, please do.

Uh Hispanic Latinx Affairs Commission term would expire December 31st, 2028.

And same thing to you too.

Just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you hope to uh bring uh to that commission.

Okay, and my name is Angelica Reina.

I'm originally from Colombia.

Moved to Tulsa 10 years ago.

Um, because of a job, my current job at Tulsa Community College.

I hold a PhD in human development and family studies, and I work as a faculty in child development and education, DCC.

And happy to be now part of the bachelor of the new bachelor's degree, they want to be offering next year.

Um, oh, just kind of what your hopes are for serving on the commission.

Yes, you know, English is not my first language, so I wrote some notes if you don't mind.

I can I can read it.

This is very important.

So for me, um, this role is about like being present and listening and making sure um our Latinox Hispanic community has a voice at the table.

Uh there's still a lot of families and individuals, and who needs a poor resources and and people willing to speak up for them.

And to me, being part of the commission allowed me to do that.

Um, and I would like to use the exposition to advocate for very cool things for them, and for a stronger also communication between the CD and the community.

Great.

Well, thank you, Helica, very much.

Uh, any questions from counselors?

Thank you for your little music.

Thank you for continuing.

Yes, we really appreciate it, and you'll be on the third as well, just for this um appointment reappointment.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Item number four is city council initiation of amendments to the neighborhood character overlay text as the request of the Renaissance neighborhood.

This is Shabella, you want to take the lead and then turn it over to Susan.

Yeah, sure.

I'll just tee up.

Some of you may remember a multi-year process with that initial character overlay for the Renaissance neighborhood, and that we had recently within the past year or so initiated a second character overlay for um Florence Park.

Um, basically, after Florence Park's kind of suggestions, recommendations came forward for their character overlay.

The Renaissance neighborhood saw those sets of recommendations and realized that there were things that they really wish they'd included in their character overlay, since that one was the very first one the city did.

There's just trial and error and lessons learned, and so once they saw that in this second iteration with Florence Park that there were elements that they wish they'd included that would have made a lot more sense in preserving their neighborhood um kind of character and cohesion.

They came back to the table initially when they were asking for some upgrades.

I did wonder if at this point, like guys, should we pursuing historic preservation?

But what they were requesting was very measured and again falls in line with what Florence Park is doing, and those neighborhoods are pretty near each other.

Um and I'll just add as an element.

I don't I know Susan and I both had considered like how many times can we do character overlays or update character overlays?

And we were even just discussing before this meeting how there are only so many neighborhoods in Tulsa outside of maybe a subdivision that's very planned and already created where you have a high level of consistency around what those houses look like.

These are those neighborhoods with this brick bungalows with like really angled roofs that are over in the midtown TU area where there really is a specific unique character.

A lot of other neighborhoods have a lot more variety, so I don't think that this is something we'll continue to do at an infinitum by any stretch, but I understood why, after seeing a neighborhood have a slightly more robust overlay, they wanted to make these amendments.

I'll pass it to Susan for like specifics.

So you're saying we're not gonna do this in South Tulsa, probably.

Probably not, where you either from a subdivision or you just have more variety in one neighborhood.

It just this only makes sense in so many schools.

Sure.

So only thing I'll add, um, yeah, there are some specific things that Florence Park added that Renaissance didn't again it was the first one.

It took forever, it started before the pandemic, and you know how that goes.

So I don't I don't know.

It just didn't end up with a lot of standards.

Um, for instance, they want to add roof pitch, that's something that Florence Park had that they didn't.

They also wanted to make sure the garage was significantly set back.

Um, that wasn't something they had.

Um, see other things.

Oh, they also Florence Park added a porch requirement.

That's something that they realized they wanted as well, and you know, so they they do look around and kind of see what's happening in the neighborhood and say, oh man, it doesn't quite hit our those roofs that are like this, and then there's another route.

I mean, there's the roof of the main house.

And there's that roof over the entryway or whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, we have a very pitched roofs, so yeah, there's a oh yeah, so that people don't come in the neighborhood and do flat roofs or just low super low pitched roofs.

There's a roof that you're boring.

Okay, yeah.

So, yeah, not the most exciting stuff on the planet.

Well, yeah, I think you answered kind of answered the question that I had, like, from reading the backup material, seemed like there was maybe a house that was built that sort of inspired this sort of let's go back to the drawing board, and I wondered, you know, yeah, how much yeah, is it gonna be like you people don't like what these people built, so we're just gonna go revisit, revisit.

But if that's not the case, then I think that was an element that made them take a look.

Actually, this is just as a quick humorous aside to you all.

There was they had a neighborhood meeting that I came to to hear more about the Mercury's updates, and I went in with the same perspective you had going, okay.

This is just about this one house, and after 40 minutes of reviewing what they wanted, which they were partially like, hey, this house happened, and we realized that we had gaps in what we were asking for that Florence Park actually is proposing.

So it's kind of a mostly copy paste situation.

There was a dramatic reveal where the people who own the house at issue were like that's actually our house, and there's a gasp during this neighborhood meeting.

But then they had a really collaborative conversation.

So I I went in with that kind of concern.

Is this really just about one house?

But what they presented was really cohesive and thoughtful, wasn't targeting that specific house, and then was just going, Hey, Florence Park did something better, and we wish we'd done some of that.

And I don't I don't know if this was brought up with the meeting.

I think there's a um I'll say family structure, sort of, I'm not familiar with where it is in Renaissance that's within the boundary, but the uh the neighboring character only overlay only applies to detached houses, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units.

So I don't know you know, neighbors might have been concerned about that, but this wouldn't apply to that anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah, again, this is one of those it balances preserving neighborhoods that have a unique character like this with ensuring infill housing can also happen, so it's a good kind of help strike a balance.

But you know, I hope we don't do more of these or revisit more of these ever again.

I know Susan feels similarly, maybe 80 years from now, somebody will be doing a character overlay for those homes and cells also.

Maybe it'll be something that needs to say that that's for your children.

It'll be historic by then they could be it.

All right, any other questions on this?

Okay, five ordinance approving the increased assessments for parcels within the Tulsa Stadium improvement district number one, would have the emergency clause.

Come on up.

Are you in uh finance department?

Um on April 22nd, this council adopted the resolution directing the filing of the assessment roles, and then there was a public hearing.

The resolution was approved by the Mayor on April 29th, and since then an information has been published, and property owners were mailed a copy of the resolution notifying them of the change for public hearing.

Um they will also sent their proposed assessments for the library to um property owners who object to the amount of the assessment may submit their written objection to the city clerk.

Uh if their written objection is received before Friday, May the 29th at 5 p.m., they can present their objection after the public hearing.

Public hearing is set for June 3rd at 5 o'clock.

Um the July 30 represents the 18th year of this assessment.

So they're the district.

Sure.

So this is this is for my own maybe edification.

Um so item seven is talking about um an improvement district, but it does not have the emergency clause.

I wondered the reason why ours has the emergency clause on item number five.

Is that is a timing issue, or why is it that this has the emergency clause, but item number seven doesn't.

Is it because are we filing this a little late later than normal?

No, it's filed the same time every year.

Um, so what requires the emergency clause?

I guess the preservation of life health safety, so the justification on the RFAs is to ensure compliance with the July first invoicing date.

Sounds like a timing issue, but I read that didn't.

Um the emergency clause just means it goes into effect and doesn't wait 30 days.

Right.

No, I I understand that as well.

Um what I'm trying to understand is um is it that you can file it, you know, this process is done a little earlier so that it doesn't have to go right away into the way earlier.

I think the two were at different stages.

So we came a few weeks ago with the first step of TSID, and so then that one probably came without the emergency clause, and then this stuff comes with the emergency clause.

The TID is is is at that earlier stage, and so it's not coming with the emergency clause.

I think it's just the the two are not coming, the two were not at the same step.

T SID is ahead.

Okay, but it is normal for it to come with the emergency clause at this point.

Okay.

I think it's I think he's just asking, could it come a month earlier?

So it doesn't work.

Right.

It has a C emergency.

Sometimes it's just workflow related to the things that have to be done before it can be put on the agenda.

I think that's what you're saying.

But the first part doesn't have the emergency clause on it.

Cool.

Thank you.

Channeling.

Mayor GT buying up.

I was gonna say there, there is a former counselor who would be proud of our own.

He too always focused in on some emergency clauses, and for and for good reasons.

Okay.

Next item, unless there's any other questions on this or more.

Uh I can't speak.

Ordinance amending the fiscal year 26 budget to make supplemental appropriations of 160,000.

This is related to the 2026 National Chili Bowl quality event.

Good.

Jared Morgan budget.

No emergency clauses here.

This is a quality event.

Somebody have their copy of this one.

Yeah.

This is just passed through funds we are appropriating to our managed entities department so that they can uh we received money for the Chili Bowl.

The state has turned that back over to us, and now uh the parks department will issue a payment to the uh recipient for this.

Okay, not coming out of the it is coming out of the general fund, but it's so did the money, yeah.

It was never ours, so still still isn't going to be.

Yes, sir.

Yep.

Any questions?

Okay, item seven resolution directing the filing of the annual assessment rule for the TID directing the filing of the assessment role with the clerk and some other stuff.

Um, so this is just the uh revolution for the tourist improvement district.

That's July 15th.

That's the date of the public hearing, and I think this is about state laws.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Eight ordinance amending title 43k of our ordinances relating to the 2017 limited purpose economic development temporary sales tax because the emergency clause and uh we held the press conference on April the 23rd.

Cool.

This does carry the emergency clause.

Yes, yeah.

Here we go again.

It's an emergency all over again.

Uh we'll get more in counselors.

Okay.

What's that?

Oh yeah, totally.

Um, it looks great.

We almost put your picture there's right in the middle of everything.

Um, I know we've had some conversations about this.

This is a brown movement um uh proposal uh referring to the 2016 vision funds.

Uh just kind of clicking through, talk a little bit about a little bit of the overview.

If anybody's interested, as a reminder, I know you all have seen this before, but if you're interested in the projects that were in the 2016 uh list, that's just there for reference if you need those.

The um important thing to note is just a reminder, every project uh that was in that 2016 um uh vision package has been funded.

Uh so this is the overage.

So uh the fund overperformed, uh leaving uh us with the resources that we've talked about over the last several weeks, balance of 103 and one-time funds and 12 million in annual funds.

Um, but that's just the project list, so you can kind of reord orient yourself a little bit back in.

So as we thought about you know uh how to make investments now against uh some of our shared priorities, uh the the spin down.

Uh we really focused on public safety homelessness and economic development, as we've uh had some conversations about, and just to kind of zero in on what this will do, what this proposal really does.

It funds the public safety center, allowing us to, in the most efficient way, quickest way possible, move all those public safety assets into that facility out of the all-state farm building.

Uh, it helps us capitalize on these multi-year resources uh to fund homelessness initiatives.

Really proud of the progress there so far.

Long way to go.

Proud of the progress so far.

Allows us to unlock some economic development priorities across the city, some new opportunities.

I know there's even been some projects I know we've talked about that would really fit an economic development fund driven here in this proposal.

Certainly maximize visionary projects for the future, and then as I mentioned before, make investments into our priorities.

So the proposal, we have a couple different slides that kind of lays out the proposal, but from a dollars and cents standpoint, you can kind of see the one-time uh spin down and then things that uh you know we are doing on an annual basis.

But the one time spin downs I referred to earlier, public safety center, homelessness, um, some funds set aside for municipal court and the lockup facility.

Uh, the 18 and a half was around neighborhood and economic development.

And then that four uh one five are economic development initiatives that have already been approved, if that makes sense.

So these are not the ones on the go forward basis, these are the ones that have already been approved within there.

Then on the other side of the ledger, and we'll have actual some numbers on these uh in a slide in a second.

Ongoing zinc dam operations, then gild crease museum operations, obviously guild creases, had quite the upgrade.

I'm very excited about the future of Guild Crease.

So as you can see, you see kind of where the uh existing economic development in for this fiscal year, so FY27, uh, what that looks like from the standpoint of the Gild Creek Museum operations and the Zeke Lake operations.

Uh so this is the proposed spending for fiscal year 27 out of that bigger pot of funds.

So 40 million out of the 103 essentially, is what you're looking at right here.

Just to give us a sense of what we're talking about this this particular budget year.

Um from an economic development standpoint, mention the 18 and a half.

The reason why you don't see the 18 and a half here is because we set it aside, uh, it was for to be spent down in a future year.

However, um, we could have some of that available as projects are identified so the council decide that's something that we all want to do uh this budget year or whatever we we arrived there.

So we originally suggested it for those economic development efforts across the city.

Um, I think it makes a lot of sense to consider the neighborhood conditions index as we're thinking about those projects, but but just so there's a way in which we're sort of vetting those across across the city.

I know there's already some potential ideas hanging out there from counselors, and and I'm really happy to support those as we continue to think about what are some things that can catalyze investment uh in different parts of the community.

Um just as I said before at the bottom that note is that this funding is was not included in the FY27 budget, but some of those funds could certainly be available if projects were identified, and I that I think that makes sense.

We wanted to include it because it's probably part of the round ordinance, although not part of this budget of the year.

These approved existing economic development uh incentives are things like I think like shills would be in there, IKEA would be in there, things that have been already approved, and so I just wanted to make sure that I noted that and how that is separate from the 18 and a half, if that makes sense.

Um, so these are actually uh things that are there in this budget year that you can see the 23 and a half million dollars funds uh safe move here in FY27, which includes Safe Move plus $500,000 for shelter operations for the low barrier shelter operations, and then 17 million on a go forward basis to both invest in the new low area shelter and to continue the work of Safe Move.

Um the municipal court can lockup resources.

Um this uh funding is not necessarily included in FY27, but it's set aside so as we you know are figuring out you know the future of where we put court prosecutors' office lock up our downtown division, uh, that we have some resources to start that and make sure that we are also considering that arena district master plan as we are looking up, looking to open up space for economic development in downtown Tulsa.

So this is to help us get started there.

But since we have not identified exactly where how this is all going to play out, this is not including the FY27 budget, but these are the resources that we're setting aside.

We're hope to set aside to get us there.

Public safety center.

Um, we've talked a lot about this, but gives you a sense as you all are very well aware and appreciate the counselors who participate on the small group on capital projects on helping us think through so much of this.

Um this 23 or the uh the 25 million dollars is gonna allow for us to get all those folks um into the public safety center as quickly as quickly as possible.

Um, you know, once we get to the point we have these resources secured.

Um, I think everybody would be very pleased with how quickly our teams able to move to to get this project done.

Um this is just kind of a uh continuing on the public safety center.

Uh again, underscoring the importance of the 25 million dollars.

Uh that's how we're gonna account for the overages, uh getting everybody in the building.

Um, but if there is, I think the important note and that third bullet of the current day.

Uh there is some conversation about grants or additional funds that might be out there, and so if that happens, um we would be looking to, you know, the council would have to reappropriate any dollars.

So if we got as an example, uh 10 million dollars that could go to the public safety center, that 10 million would roll back over uh for there to be some conversation to figure out if we want to reappropriate to spend that 10 million on something else.

Um, and so we have some some built-in measures there so that if we get outside help, um we can quickly pull claw back some of our resources and spend on other stuff, but the 25 million dollar guarantee in this budget means that our team can go ahead and move forward knowing that we are assured we have the resources we need to move forward.

That makes sense.

Um, recap uh this uh as I said before, this is about making investments in every one of our shared priorities.

Um it also uh I think allows us to even consider some new um small and large-scale investments that can be catalytic for the city moving forward.

Um I feel really uh good and comfortable.

I appreciate the conversation get us to this point uh on how we would would invest these resources.

I think you know the alignment with our priorities, obviously finding a way forward on some some projects that have been kind of difficult for us to figure out public safety center being one, homelessness being another, the future of jail and courts as we know that they weren't scheduled to go to the public safety center.

So figuring that out, I think relieves a lot of pressure for us from a budgetary standpoint and allows us to make significant progress uh in 27 or the rest of 26 and then the 27.

Um, but happy to take any uh questions and looking forward to the discussion.

As I said, the paper you have in front of you was just a reference point on the projects that was in that vision 2016 fund, um, but happy to take any questions.

I guess I'll go first.

Council Lincoln's looking at me.

Oh, I was trying to see if anybody had already raised their hand.

I think it's a reasonable expectation to uh counselor dector I will always have questions.

Thank you, mayor, for the presentation, and thanks for the slide deck ahead of time.

I think that was helpful just to kind of ground ourselves since we have so many parallel conversations going on.

Um for the safe move, Tulsa 6.5 million.

Are we on track to actually spend that?

And like what we're doing now.

Yeah, so the the and I know there's been a lot of questions.

Like, well, you haven't spent a ton of it yet.

That's just because of the reimbursement process, and so like we are very much on track to spend.

So, what's what's happening with Safe Move now?

We started on the camp and decommissioning.

Right now we're moving into some of the rapid exit programming, and so you're gonna start to see that pick up quite a bit on the original.

So we're really talking about the original six that we all have.

Yeah, I mean, I just want to make sure like we're not stacking dollars.

No, no, it'll it'll so.

What's gonna happen is um our ARPA dollars that we are spending right now are gonna burn out relatively soon.

This is gonna allow us to get through uh to that that year mark, and then we come in next year.

This is the year mark.

November, October, November, yeah.

Uh, and get us into next budget year where we can do some evaluation on you know the 17 that we have uh set aside how much that do we need to invest based on where we are.

So the initial challenge of ARPA will get us to November, then these 6.5, if appropriated, we'll pick up the in back for like seven months.

The ARPA and the opioid dollars, there yes, and then this vision allocation would kind of pick up where that's absolutely leaving off.

And on this pace of a thousand people a year, which is the plan.

Okay.

Um I think I have other questions, but I'll let people go.

Maybe I'll just to tag on to the safe move.

Um six and a half million.

Do you anticipate that being paired with private dollars?

Similar to what we've done before.

Yeah, so the six million that we have invested as a city this point has been matched with I believe four million for a total of actually five million, um, for a total of eleven in this first year.

The goal is gonna continue to be to work with partners as we're building a coalition of folks invested in safe move, which is a pretty broad coalition at this point.

Um, and so yeah, the goal would be that we continue to find uh additional resources of folks who are working with us on this particular initiative.

That's clear fine.

Uh, then also with the 17 million for low barrier, is that so 17 years?

So no, no, no.

So the the the money the 17 million speaks to all the resources available for homelessness, our commitment has been a million a year for the operations uh of the low barrier shelter.

So you could think about that in a number of different ways.

So if we're gonna spend 10 million next year uh on like safe move as an example, we'll spend 11 overall because we need to spend a million for the low berry shelter operations, and so that's 17 million dollars is what we have for future years as it relates to homelessness, knowing we have a million dollar commitment every year to recommend your shelter.

Okay, that that's clarifying.

The harbor is that what you're talking about?

Yes, we are okay.

That's what we're on.

The little barrier, which is set to open in November, is that right?

That's yeah, how we look at it.

We believe that's what we've got.

I've gotten careful about timelines these days.

Well, okay.

Um the four and four point one five million in um economic incentive projects.

You had said those are for projects that have all we've already made the commitments to, um you had mentioned Shields and IKEA.

So I I for some reason I thought that the the two point five was had we had already identified it was already it's not already been.

It's a TIFF for Shield.

Yeah, so the way to further explanation.

Yeah, I have a question.

Yeah, and I'm gonna make sure that Christy can support me here.

So the idea was the things that we have as commitments in the general fund that are economic development in nature, that we would move those over to the vision funds because they're economic development, allowing us to do some of the other things uh that we need to have the general fund because those resources are more flexible.

Christy, you want to.

Yeah, so we have retail incentives such as Costco and had a few others, and then we also have the TIFS, and those pull money away from the general fund that could be there, and so this is just intended to help kind of fill that for the general fund.

So it is a refilling of the account that have already gone out.

Um, revenue foregone that we're basically filling it out.

So revenue foregone, and so the retail incentives like we will collect it and we'll pay rates back now.

Okay, well, that's no problem.

This one's clearly.

We could appropriate or designate this bucket for 4.15 million dollars worth of economic development activities, leave what we have in the general fund, and then use this for the work that Aaron and his team are doing in the future.

Correct.

We could say next big box, your incentives are coming out of the 4.15.

Instead of if you give it, if you relieve the general fund, then other things could be there could be other ways for us to spend those monies that are not economic development related.

Okay, you could certainly do that, and it would change the um overall look of the the general fund right now as it has that transfer coming in uh for each of the two years.

It has that two and two point one five, and so it would change the the revenues in for in the resources in in that fund, and then the overall fund balance uh would change if we've made that change.

Okay, because the budget that was presented had this report.

Correct.

So I want to just yeah, yeah, just finish up.

Two more things, and this is just from my understanding, just because anyone can answer this, just because you brown ordinance a fund out of vision, doesn't mean it's necessarily included in this year's budget.

That's is that correct?

That is correct, okay.

So of the 103, about 40 of it is in the FY27 budget.

Okay.

No, that's that's clear clarity.

Uh very like the 17 we were talking about is not in this year's budget, right?

The six and a half is though, as a like as an example of just one of the absolutely.

Uh on the public, well, you have a question.

My question's back on this 4.15.

So thank you for kind of reframing.

Um, as I understand it, we did a TIFF.

There's still retail redevelopment funds from the vision, which were like around three million dollars, and that goes through partner tools, right?

So when we talk about incentives, I think it would be helpful for us to have the full comprehensive picture, not just kind of slices.

I understand for this discussion, we're talking about backfilling general funds or something, but for us to make more strategic decisions about what Aaron needs to, you know, go out and get the big fish and what partner Tools is doing with our consultants.

I think that would be helpful context as we start deciding what to do with these dollars.

So, yeah, and remember that we either weren't smart enough or something happened in 2016 with these revolving funds where they were expended, and then when they came back in, they could be used for other purposes.

Yeah, by us or by the mayor's office.

I mean, it's it's us collectively, it's not just one or the other.

Uh, and we've chosen as a council to use them for things.

Uh, yeah, I just want to make sure that the public doesn't think because we got a Shields and IKEA deal, we have to gap fill 4.15 million dollars on a general fund.

We didn't like say we'll figure that out later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's that's yeah, that's that's not what we're gonna do.

So I mean, I think the we use the the TIF, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so the thought was if there are things in the general fund that are economic development in nature, then let's use it like dollars that can only be spent on economic development on those things, allowing for us to you know use our general fund dollars to do the other things that may not be there.

I will say though, counselor, and I don't I don't know if if if this feeds into an additional conversation potentially around like the 18 and a half whenever whenever we get to that point.

I think your note about getting a good picture about the things that we need.

I mean, I think there's a conversation to be had at the council table about you know how are we thinking about that, haven't really prioritized it in this presentation since we didn't really budget it this year, but I do think that's another you know important conversation to have.

Should we ultimately choose to use those resources in that way?

Yeah, and I just for people who are thinking, well, I thought Shields and IQ were supposed to bring in revenue, it's going to be a tremendous remote.

I just I really want to clarify this is one idea to shift uses, but um it doesn't have to be that.

So I think we should just learn more about this 4.15 million in the highest and best um way to use it for maximum returns, basically, and to also make sure we're covering our core obligations.

Yeah, I think the focus of my question is just on balancing out the fact that I really don't I want us to continue to use monies for economic development because the return is so high.

Absolutely, um, so that we're not moving this money over to the vision funds so we can use the 4 million, let's say of general fund monies for you name it, like some bases or something like that.

Well, just something that doesn't have anything to do with economic funds.

Yeah, so the theory that and I think I think we're all in line.

I guess I think what maybe we might be getting crossways on like we'd be spending this money either way, and I think we don't know that.

I think just the the idea was from a budgeting standpoint.

If we have things that are economic development in nature, how do we look at every all the resources we have and best resource every need?

And I think that's that's more of the conversation than trying to shift something somewhere else.

It's just we have these resources.

What's the best way in this budget to make everything work and go?

And this and that was the that was the reason.

So it's more so that not even a broader sort of um you know uh you know move to do things dramatically different forever just in this budget year, but investing in all the needs, what dollar makes the most sense where I think that was we also have some economic development dollars sitting with a contractor.

And so when we talk about having dollars to do the things that we want to see a return on, I would just like for us to also look at that and the global picture of it all as we're making decisions, absolutely.

All right, yeah.

So just two more things.

I wanted to ask about the public safety center.

Um said potentially maybe if we got a $10 million grant, we could, you know, it could displace what was appropriated for that move.

So somebody on your team is is gonna be actively seeking to see if we can.

I'll just justice our team, uh Sarah, and a lot of us are working on a grant right now with NCOG, right?

Uh and if that comes through, what we would do is we would say, well, kind of same thing on the second development stuff.

Some if there's somebody else who comes in resources to help us fulfill one of these needs, then we would move those dollars somewhere else, and then we would come to this table decide how you want to reappropriate whatever amount of money there.

We receive okay, and then just backing kind of backing up all the way.

Of the 103, you're asking, or there's a request to brown ordinance, like ninety some odd.

What are those numbers?

So it's actually, so if you look at this, uh yeah, so you gotta on the Gill crease operations, Christy, correct me where I'm wrong.

Um that is times two, right?

Is that right?

Yes.

And then Zink Lake is also times two.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Uh so this is only a twenty-seven look.

I think that's where the math might be slightly different.

And so it comes out to like 102 something or another once we do it all.

Um yeah, this is like I think is this is the 91 they showed them, yeah.

So the two on the right, the zinc operations and the increase operations, those don't require the brown ordinance.

And then that next slide had the annual amount for FY27, and then we're timing it by two to get the twenty-eight amount as well.

So the items on the left are the items that require the brown ordinance, and so if you add it up the left and the right-hand side of the screen, if the right hand side had dollar amounts, you'd get the one on three.

Okay.

So, because um somebody said, Well, can't you can't you save a little bit of it?

Maybe uh make a little bit of it grow, or do we need all of it?

Um, and then I thought, well, it looks like we have like 10 or 12 million left over, but it it I can see how you're sort of allocating it all.

Um, maybe I maybe I will ask, just so that because it's a public meeting, have you considered taking a portion of that uh those vision funds and uh you know not using it all but using but maybe taking the portion and uh saving it and trying to grow it in some way.

So we w how I would answer that question, um, is if I'm thinking about just the the sort of the needs that we had.

So this is more of a needs-based deal, right?

So 25 million dollars for the I'm just reading off this deal in particular.

If I'm thinking about those 25 million dollars for the public safety center, we know we need it.

We might be able to mitigate some of those with the grant, so but we know we need to have some assurances so we can move as quickly as possible there.

Uh the 23 and a half for homelessness has been something you know, I think we all know it's been a difficult thing to fund, and we have the resources to do it.

And in addition to, you know, I think an alignment around um, you know, it being the right to prove it, do we get a lot of pressure from the community to to get there on that and then begin to move forward and build some additional partnerships, investment partnerships and uh kind of programmatic partnerships around that.

The municipal court and lockup, um, you know, we have some conversations that are gonna be going with a number of different folks who maybe maybe able to help us there, but we've got to have a court and a prosecutor's office and that kind of stuff.

You know, there could be some conversation, maybe on the you know, if if it makes sense, makes more sense to you know, consider saving some uh neighbor development, like those kind of things maybe.

Um but I think those are also very appropriate for us to be considering how we might invest back in the community.

So if I was thinking about the needs, um, I would probably answer that question that way, uh, just because these things are were gonna be things that if we don't do them now, we're gonna go have to ask voters to help us do them in the future, I guess.

And so maybe doing them now and taking care of some things is gonna open us up for some really unique opportunities in the future.

I think that's how I would think about what does this open up for us as a community from an economic development standpoint.

I think everybody's very well aware what the public safety center and moving municipal court and lockup do for us.

Uh, I think I would argue the same is true for making progress on homelessness.

So, like I think those big chunks are things that are gonna have huge returns on the back end, even though we're having to spend money to get there now.

All right, thank you.

Yes, sir.

I also say that if I don't know if when you say save it, like you mean invest it like in earned investment income, the cost of projects over time just get more expensive, and so sometimes what you might earn depending on the interest rate environment, maybe less than the cost of construction is increasing.

So, if we spend capital capital projects, yeah, we don't have the ability to invest it in equity markets or anything that for-profit businesses use either, so it's pretty the minimum earnings, pretty normal and routine interest earnings for those types of things.

Counselor Bellus, and then go for it.

Um, let me pull up my little list.

Um, I there's all work backwards from since we talked about safe moves.

Sorry to jump around between two books.

Um, I was curious because I know, or at least understand, and maybe there's reimbursement requests that are still being processed, but we still have for safe move there's like 1.4 million of ARPA and four million of opioid dollars that haven't been spent down yet, but they have to be spent out.

The ARPA ones at least don't have to be spent down by a certain date.

Is there a thought about if those could be you know accelerated to be spent on for a safe move offsetting some of the I'm just trying to figure out if there's if those get spent down by a different date or not?

Do we need to move those somewhere else and does that then put more need from this budget proposal?

I'm just trying to understand the flow of those dollars.

Sorry.

I'm not I may have misunderstood the question.

Um, I just know that there's still our budget opioid dollars that haven't been spent down, um, for a safe move at least through the next several months.

Um, right, it has to.

If it can't be spent and reimbursed fast enough, I'm curious if we're gonna use it somewhere else or if you don't or from this.

From what I understand, and Emily's out today, but from what I understand, we're not gonna have a problem.

Like the the invoices are gonna catch up.

Okay, that's yeah, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna catch up there.

It seems why was they're getting really really close, and and I, I did have some anxiety about that, but um, I don't have that level of anxiety anymore.

We're gonna catch up there, and the good thing about maybe things sometimes will fit on the invoice side is it does mean then we have really really good accounting of where we're spending money.

Yeah, and so like the the overspending is something that we can protect against, yeah.

Uh so I think we would we wouldn't have the problem of having to fill where we didn't spend money quick enough.

Um I think we could all we'd always be in a much more comfortable place where you know we're able to know that we have the resources that we need if that makes outline.

No, no, that does make sense.

That's what I was curious.

I kind of imagine that there were probably outstanding reimbursement.

You know, I know that that's just as a and they're gonna catch up.

I mean, like part of the part of the challenge with when Safe Move got off the ground was it was November, I think, October, November, and the setup was challenging, and the start was challenging.

The first kind of decommission of encampments was you know slow because you know you're you're you're you know, in a couple different places where you're looking at, you know, five, ten, twelve people now between doing the encampment work, the downtown work, and the rapid exit work, you're gonna start to see a lot more um a lot more spinning, and a lot quicker than it's that it's gone the first few months.

That makes yeah, no, that makes sense.

Okay.

Um and then I was curious for the public safety center costs.

Are there more because I was is there more kind of detailed breakdown?

I know one of my curiosities has always been about the like the costs if there's ways to do things, you know.

I I know some of you all are in more capital meetings on this, if there's ways to do things in phases or if there's grants that could happen for some of the pieces versus the wholesale thing, or I just wasn't sure.

Yeah, I mean, I I think the there the there we talked about a more of a phase approach that Mary is here um before when we you know didn't necessarily have the resource to get there.

I think the resource is critical is it allows us to have the maximum amount of flexibility to get it done as quick as possible.

So if there's some, if there's some ways to mitigate some of the investment, like just like we were just talking about homelessness, like we can offset that, but not know like the the not knowing is gonna make whatever phase and go significantly slower because you're gonna run into something that might be a huge expense that you just can't do, um, potentially um and so I know there's been a lot of value engineering and trying to figure it out, but we're at a space right now where the team has guarantees that we have the resources that we need, even if they're gonna be offset a different way.

That means that the planning can move full speed ahead, and yeah, we can get all those resources in there and get it done as quickly as possible.

Okay, things that that makes sense, and then um in any dollar we say, like I was referring to before, because we did have this conversation that it wouldn't just like go back into uh a pot that we can you know reallocate without any sort of uh conversation, it would have to come back for reappropriation or whatever the case may be.

Okay, that makes sense.

I think I'm flagging then to my colleagues and Sarah, maybe for future council agendas of you know, if this moves forward in this way, thinking about how we have at the table checkpoints to see where we are from you know, projections versus spend and allocation so we can like be as proactive as we can if there's the need for reallocations as we go um for some of these really specific projects for the line items, you know, yeah, the revenue could come through or things like that.

Um and I was just curious, was there consideration or discussion for some of this about um the convention center hotel and any of the maybe some of these economic development dollars could go to that potentially, but it's just one of those.

I know there's so much active work with different people, you know, bringing all those different potential partners through.

We know it's kind of an economic, or at least I'm gonna realize it's an economic non-negotiable for our city or downtown to work to get there.

Is there consideration about these dollars?

Any of these going toward that or helping fill that out.

You know, how I think about these dollars, these dollars are what I would consider to be kind of enabling dollars to make that project possible to make the site and make it a feasible site still.

Um, right now is as I know it's been talked about, um, we are studying the finances on the convention center hotels to see where we're at and if you know if there's a gap, what's that gap look like?

Um but I think the important thing is is that since we've already made the investment of you know nearly 50 million dollars into the public safety center, it's important that we get that done.

Uh we figure out the jail and and to your point counselor.

Um we will make sure then that whenever the we get to the point to figure out what that gap is and how do we begin to fill it, um, that the thing that slows us down is not the fact that we're still occupying that space.

Um so I do I do think in some ways this is kind of an investment there.

I I don't I can't speak to what um the finance gap might be.

Uh I imagine there's gonna be one, and that'll be a conversation, but we would have at least done our job of making sure we took care of big chunk of it by um you know getting ourselves to the building we've invested in and then figuring out some of these other things on the things that's helpful, and that's a good point about making like I know the site has to become feasible.

I I'm just wondering, do you think we'll have up to I don't know how far along, and again, I know there's like capital groups on this, are how far along they like when do we think we'll have those estimates about that delta?

I'm just trying to make sure we have full information we're making these decisions.

Um Chris did you know I mean there's there's one study that's being done that we should have a draft in early June, I think.

So then that'll feed into another consultant who's really helping with the identifying that gap.

Okay, so let's say July, you know, should we uh okay?

So after this, okay, and our goal counselors, yeah.

Um, just as another helpful piece is with the 25 million dollars is to establish a timeline that gets us away from the site, you know, not just say, hey, what's the last possible day we could be there, but so we can you know move forward as quickly as we can, and you know, um it'll it'll it'll be ready to go.

So reason the whole situation with the conventional hotel makes me think of an Indiana Jones where they're trying to move the at least trying to move the two objects that way the same thing.

Like it's like it feels like that somehow.

Just here for a pop culture reference.

Um, no, that's all really helpful.

And then that's my just the last little thing is is it possible from this proposal to get kind of a spreadsheet?

So I'm just this is just me, like learning type, just to be able to see it maybe in a three-year band, like three-year fiscal year band, to just see the proposal in that format would be really helpful.

You mean how we're gonna spin down the over the yeah?

Yeah, that would be yeah.

If I had I think Christy probably already has it, but thank you.

Yeah, and just to this um, line of questions.

I would just ask Sarah and Jack to really help us think through the the language of the ordinance so that if something happens, then funds could be used for these other things.

So I guess if something doesn't happen in the vein of courts, let's say, if we I don't know, use other monies for a courts related facility.

What else could we use these monies for?

So um I I don't have any other direction other than that at this point, but being being limiting in some points, but being broad enough to uh take care of future opportunities and actions.

I think you guys, at least on the public safety center, I imagine across the board have had some conversation about what that could look like.

The language has been updated to contemplate a grant.

Um I don't know that it's been there's just general language in Brown ordinances as well.

I don't know that's been upgraded to talk about um like cost savings in a different way besides a grant, and then on the bucket that um councillor Bellis was talking about that 18.9 is that the jail courts, um that one you you could consider broadening it so it could be used for hotel or site prep or things like that.

That could give you you might need to adjust the language on that bucket, feels like we're still trying to decide if we're going to build a facility or lease facilities or work with other parties, so while while those things are still up in the air, giving us uh enough leeways that we can make changes if necessary, okay.

Uh Gilbert and then Dr.

Like, yeah, so um Mayor, thank you for the presentation.

Appreciate it.

Um, he leaves the room, just want to start talking.

I just want to um, yeah.

Um so my um my questions pretty much followed along with the um the public safety center, the timeline for that.

I know that that's still up in the air because of the timing of the hotel, where we are and all of that.

Um, but also um I would like to see the same language for the public safety center that we're using just in case we do get that grant.

And Sarah, thank you for being so instrumental.

And Mary helping us with that, yes, it is.

Appreciate it.

But you started it, so yeah, but then we did everything.

But um just so that as we as we are having conversations, um with other partners on the jail and what municipal courts is going to look like in the future if we could um adapt that same uh language and to follow just in case we do um those other conversations work out.

Um on the um on the homeless and the 23.5, um can you kind of give us an example of I mean I we keep hearing about the the invoices and everything that is still out there to be paid.

Can you give us kind of an example?

I don't know who example of what of what those who are our partners in that.

What kind of invoices are we referring to?

So they're so I know it's broad, but just give us a a smudge of an example.

So they're grand dollars, so we're our auditors are looking at them from that perspective.

Every every single invoice and looking at time cards that have you know that they're properly charged, that they're signed, all those things, and so they come from the then housing solutions is going to be contracted with.

I hope we've got that right, and then um they've actually contracted with others, and so there's a process of them getting the invoices from their vendors and then up to them, they're looking at it and submitting it, and we're looking at it for if we have any questions or things that we want changed, we're sending them back, and there's a it's a longer process with the grants, yeah.

And but it's moving along, and and I think that when you start a new program, then there's a little bit of uh learning and developing and things get smoother as you go.

And so we met with them in person um not last Friday, but the Friday before, and we started some regular meetings to help make sure that we were spending those monies and that we're getting all of our back and forth, like shortening up that time frame and ensuring that we get a spent um by the arch event line.

Right, and I get that.

Um, but as we're having these conversations, there's lots of these conversations that are being that we're not talking about those invoices and stuff in public meetings, and so I think it's a it's important that the public know how that money is being used and um in the different partners that we're working with to help um with this situation.

So yeah, and I know um I know the intent and Sari may help back me up on this.

Uh the intent of our homelessness working group was to really walk through all that.

I'm not exactly sure when our next meeting is, but what we do in that working group can certainly be available, made available to every counselor, including like you know, the the sort of track where do our dollars go as part of the sort of versus others.

We could do some examples of the kinds of things that are being paid for.

I know we kind of the idea was to contain it to that group to help as we are moving forward, but I know we've done some of that work already just in preparation for the next meeting.

So there were there are two phases of of that working group.

So the first phase was understanding how what we would do in FY27 around homelessness, and so that's where that really focused on that 6.5 million moving forward, the second phase, which we wouldn't start till after we finish this budget because there's just there's just so many hours in the day um for us to have that will really focus on the long-term um financial strategy for funding um homelessness and how those dollars will be used.

So I don't think you're too that part two of that conversation yet.

But on yours on the on the sixth one on your question on the 6.5, um it's it would be pretty easy to go.

So our invoices are all gonna come from housing solutions.

Right.

Um, and then when you look in the back end of the system, you'll see who the partners are, and there will be some admin costs, but there will be some rental costs, there will be other supports and those like wraparound support costs that you'll all see charged back in different grants have different checkpoints on those.

Right.

But as we're out attending neighborhood meetings and everything, that's one of the big questions that's asked is what's happening with homeless.

Uh what are we what are we doing, um, who are your partners that you're working with, and so I I mean for us, I think it would be um important that we have that information so that we can give it out to the residents and let them know.

That's what I'm saying.

I think you've got that on I think we can answer that without going in the second part.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's just a lot of council, of course.

Okay, so you want to forget utility, just let us I mean, just so that we can answer those questions when we're at these neighborhood meetings, yeah.

And just for context, it was the group that has been established, was what we came out of the retreat this last year as we had this conversation.

Um, it's that group, but what what we can do?

I mean, we can even we can eat for town halls or whatever.

If it's helpful, we can you know continually update like a one pager or something like that.

I mean, you we want to make sure it's as helpful as possible.

I know Emily, I think has come to a couple of town halls that would ask, but if there's some easier things to easily communicate whether it's a like a one-page briefing for you, something that you can hand out, let us know.

I think producing that would be um, yeah.

I mean, because I attended a board meeting for the day center for the homeless, and they were asking how safe move is working with Data Center for the homeless, and I couldn't answer that question because Mac asked you that question.

I no, no, Mac did not, so um, but it was asked to me and um I didn't have that information, and so I couldn't answer that question, so um that's why I think it's it would help us um uh especially with us being out and about at different meetings and such, especially neighborhood meetings and uh I know residents it's on their minds just as much as it is on ours, and so um if we could get that, but um if this if this is approved, um are we still applying for opiate dollars?

Yeah, I mean, our our goal with um any resource that we have whether it be on homelessness or anything else is to go find available resources and if we can offset things we we obviously will.

Um I know there's some debate, and I'm don't want to get into that debate here on like the this is just a QA.

No, no, no, no, but no, I'm I'm saying I'm I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound like I'm but I'm not at all.

But you know, what we have been told is a level of investment that we have to that we should be aspiring to is a pretty big number, right?

And so I think what we're doing is evaluating, you know, what do we have, how do we spend it, how do we spend the most effectively that we can, and you know, to the extent that we can get initial resources to things we will, but not get them just for the sake of having those resources but making sure they can go to getting us to our ultimate goal, which is to give folks off the street supported and so on and so forth.

So it wouldn't be so so to answer your question, even if we were to use opioid dollars as an example, uh say we set aside this six million dollars and we got two million in opioid dollars.

I wouldn't be able to say right now that offsets two million of the six.

It may it may just cost us eight to do what we need to do, right?

Um if it if we can add capacity to do something or solar so forth, like so.

I get I'm just I'm just trying to I don't know that's what you're asking, but I'm saying like you know, we would be trying to figure out how do we actually achieve the goal.

Right, but I mean I don't I mean what how I see us, and this is just Karen's perspective.

Um, even though we are dedicating this money to homelessness, we should stop looking at other revenue streams to help this.

Absolutely not.

Yes, you we are aligned on that, 100,000 percent.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am, a hundred thousand dollars, and very sense, by the way.

Um, but it also if we could um if we could get Emily to come and also talk about some of those line items um just so that we have a better idea and the public.

Um so it's it's more transparent going through that process, um, so that we yeah, absolutely, and I mean, I I would also have us in some ways also lean on that group that we establish out of the retreat.

Um, definitely on this table too, but because of what I'm what I want to make sure we get to a place that um the entire council, but certainly those that were on three age to participate in this task force, like you know, have as much comfort as possible and and being able to, you know, um you know, take the on because you guys are ultimately appropriate, just want to make sure it's not you know just containingly said, but but there's some some folks who feel as comfortable with it here.

No, anybody that we need to have come to the table to talk about this.

I would uh I would appreciate just so that I mean because um I mean that's that's a lot of money, and so just as we um are answering the questions and being accountable to the public that we have these discussions here at this table.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Oh, absolutely, that's we want to make sure we you know also, you know, drill down as much as we can in there and then make whatever it is available.

To that question, um, my understanding is that there's two different actions.

You know, there's the brown ordinance, and then there's the appropriation action, right?

So we can collectively give ourselves the ability to shift if necessary by by setting the budget that needs to be going toward homelessness, and so we don't have to appropriate the full 25 million, we can say let's appropriate X amount this year for this cause.

Right, but I I also want to be transparent of how much money we have we have used up to this point.

Oh, totally, um, to to prove that we to keep this to keep it going that we need to keep making that investment in it.

So, yeah.

Yeah, I think the the other thing that you know I'm not sure um I'm not 100% sure we have enough discussions about um is the impact, and I know we'll get uh at least a point in time count update here pretty soon, but I think it it might be helpful, and I don't know if we're doing this in the smaller group meetings or not, um, to get maybe to the extent that folks have time to do this kind of stuff to spend some of the time with some of the partners to see some of the activities start saying or bring it here because that that might also just be helpful like just to you know feel good about or have a perspective about well, why are can we do something better here or there?

And so we'd love to find ways to get counselors with some of the partners too.

I mean, I heard some really good stories at that board meeting that I attended and at the day center, and so I think it it would be great to hear some of our stories.

Absolutely, um, to in a public meeting so that um people can actually hear and um find out what safe move is is doing and how we're helping those that need it the most.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Okay, uh Dr.

Wright and then Dutton, and then maybe we can move on to our friends and yes, I'm just gonna do a little wrap back on what I heard counselor Bellis request.

So if we could get that table with the proposed uses of one time plus the ones that create a future obligation on a general fund or other funding source, that would be helpful, and then if we could also have a column that says like what our measurable outcomes are, so that we to counselor Gilbert's point can like wrap back to the public.

We're investing on these things because these are what we expect the outcomes to be.

This is what we've proven the outcomes are, and then if there's any going on the continuing obligations, what the plan is for sustaining those, whether it's hotel model or whatever, you know, what we're kind of identifying is like when we get to that cliff, what does that look like?

Um the other thing I just wanted to ask on the jail court strategy.

So we're gonna make a pretty sizable investment whether we move into a existing space, create our own whatever to be determined.

Are we still planning to invest in the current jail facility?

I think there's like three hundred thousand kind of earmarked to do current jail improvements.

Yeah, I think there's a small amount.

I don't know if we have a thousand isn't small, but in capital projects it is, and it is to expand the capacity right now, and that'll save us from our overflow that'll there's actually a savings because we'll have less overflow with Tulsa County, and so we'll be saving those saving those dollars.

Could you send us if we didn't already get it or point to where we would see that the realized savings for that 300 in?

I mean, it doesn't have to be it right now.

Please have that.

Okay, can you send it to Sarah?

Yes, we can.

Okay, and then she was correct on that.

Um the dollars that we spend today and the capital expenditure, hold on, people can't hear you.

So sorry, so I have a lot of communications.

Yes, I still haven't learned that at home.

So yeah.

Expand.

Expand the current facility will mitigate our operational cost on overflow that we have.

Because we're limited to 70 in our current jail.

Right.

And we could go to the county.

We take them to the county.

Yeah, I think it would just help us to know the strategy, like if you could just send like for 300,000, we're gonna save 600 or whatever if you could get it to Sarah for us to see.

Yes, and it also depends on when we do those calculations, it also depends on how long we will continue to occupy that.

So when we send it to you, it'll it'll extrapolate out six months, one year, and then the longer we go, the longer we'll realize savings.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

That's helpful just to understand like timing.

Yep, sir.

Yeah, so I want to um circle back to safe move also, and uh I appreciate your comments, Council Director, right?

I would be interested also in a breakdown of the uh payouts thus far, which I have arranged for Emily to come and speak with us on June 10th about that at a UED meeting, but I also would like to see the measurable outcomes when it comes to the individuals, and how much maybe it looks like that we've already spent on individuals per se.

Um are you thinking like a cost per person type of a deal?

Yes.

I'm watching on the TV because I can't see on the screen.

That's why I was looking up here.

Oh okay.

I do the same thing.

Yeah, Kevin, you look good over there, man.

Yeah, I I think that would be helpful as well because that would give us a projected idea of what we're looking at for the future, and how many individuals actually benefited from it.

If we're looking at a thousand a year, um, I would like to know those breakdowns, sure, and outcomes so that we you know understand, and you know, if they actually went into hotels or apartments, or what that actually is.

Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things I also asked some, I mean, this is probably I know this is not a meeting on homelessness, so I won't take us there too much though, but I know there's another area that um you know we've come across just to be completely transparent.

I mean, there's there's some there's some folks in this work that uh you know have a level of acuity that's really really difficult to deal with and so finding solutions.

So we can even talk about some of the real challenges that we're finding on the streets that you know.

I I think there's a conversation at this table last week or a week before on like mental health and those types of things.

I mean, we're starting to see a lot of those things pop up and uh where it slips into a budget conversation is uh in addition to you know the things that we feel are our uh our obligation, also thinking about who are some of the best partners we need to be partnering with on things that like we probably will never be able to do as a city.

We're engaging folks, we can get them there in ways in which we might be able to better work with the state and other partners because we are seeing some things that are relatively challenging.

And so as we talk about the future of building partnerships, we're starting to find where some of those partnerships are gonna be absolutely critical for us.

And I would maybe even have Emily bring some of that stuff to the table.

I think it's really important for the public to hear.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Supporting documentation prior to the meeting would be really helpful.

Um, and I'd also be interested in how many people have actually ended back out on the street, um, yeah, the recidivism of yeah.

One of the markers um on the move toward functional zero is you know, keeping track of the folks you served, and you know, a ninety-five percent success rate is typically the goal over a two-year period.

Um, so I'm I'm sure we could certainly produce that now, but one of the sort of, you know, uh KPIs over two years is how many folks that were served are back on the street.

Uh, one of them is how long did it take us from the time we first engaged somebody to get them housed, um, and then then also the work that that you know we all are certainly focused on the available unit.

Um is another another one of those, so we can we can bring all those kind of top lines.

Okay, but in addition to some of the others that are just for some of the partners as well.

Just a few of them from that.

What's that that'll give us insight into evictions?

Yeah, and the eviction mitigation coalition has been pulled together.

I know they have some recommendations coming at the end of the month that will also be shared.

So thinking about the constraints we have due to state law, and what's been and Emily by June.

You say 10th, June 10th.

That actually those recommendations will also be something that can be brought here as well.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Wrapping up this agenda item.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

We appreciate it.

Uh now, Tulsa Public Schools agenda item number one discussion with TPS regarding current priorities and projects, including an update on the voter approved bond package.

Welcome to Tulsa City Council.

We're really grateful to have you here.

We're sorry you had to wait for so long.

I'm sorry, the front.

I hope you learned something.

It's just hard for you all to see that.

And I can just add some context-wise, but it's on the agenda.

Yeah, I'll let once everyone gets settled.

Well, there's other smart seats that people are.

Thank you.

Okay.

Alright, so we're going to start.

How many more do we need?

Oh, chairs.

Three.

Would you mind ending the chairs?

You can just pull those chairs up to the table.

Just take the chairs that you're sitting in and pull them up to the table.

We can make some space.

Okay, we just opened up.

No, because we're going to need you on the microphone.

Yeah, you can talk about it.

Oh, here we have a chair and right here.

I'm gonna go.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

If you weren't planning to talk, and we're not trying to disrupt your plans.

Um, but yeah, just to offer as everyone gets seated, just some quick context.

I put this on the agenda because of course, congrats to Tulsa Public Schools for that bond issues.

Um I thought it was a good opportunity for us to you know hear from TPS about what that generates for Tulsa, and then how we use the city government can best align with that.

And I think this has fortuitous timing because I know we're hearing from the office of children within families later today.

Um, and so I'm just excited to hear from you all, and I know there's also a student leader at the table, too.

So, really yeah, grateful for you all to spend time with us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you want to take away with the intros and it's all the table's yours?

Sure.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much.

Welcome to the end of the school year.

Um, I would say at McLean, a building full of teenagers without their principal.

For that reason, I do want to know how much time is appropriate um for this presentation because we we can condense condense.

Just didn't know what uh what do you all believe will be?

Okay, all right.

Well, we won't need that much time, but but thank you.

All right, um, thank you all.

We're a few days away from graduations.

That's a great time to be in Tulsa Public Schools.

Um, thank you to the Tulsa City Council for inviting us to come.

I know our mayor was here.

I'm not sure if he uh he left the room.

Mayor Nichols, Deputy Mayor Reyes was in the room.

Um so thank you for having us.

I specifically just want to share what we plan to cover for today, and again, we will do a convinced version of just a lot of amazing work as well as our challenges and our charge.

So today we're gonna talk about some of our successes in Tulsa Public Schools.

I'm excited to share some of the progress we've made.

We're also going to talk about our challenges.

We like to always present in a well-rounded way so that um there's a full understanding of the good work and the great work and then the challenges that we have before us.

We have had some bond success, as was mentioned, and so we'll talk a bit about the various bond packages, how many uh how much dollars are put in each package, what that means for Tulsa Public Schools, what that means for the city of Tulsa, as where is our career academies work, which we are so so excited about.

And then lastly, just the partnership between the city and TPS and just our continued work together.

So that's what we'll discuss today.

So yeah, you see that we have some awesome sites.

We have 45 elementaries, 10 middle, nine high, seven alternative schools.

We have six district authorized charter programs and one virtual school.

We have about 32 plus thousand students in Tulsa Public Schools.

For the sake of time, you see our mission and our vision there.

We are the largest school district still in the state because parents are choosing Tulsa Public Schools, and we're grateful for that.

Before I go any further, I want to always acknowledge those who you know, in a very supportive yet accountable way, ensure that I do the right work and do the work that we are charged to do in collaboration with our team.

So very happy to have our president of our school board here, Susan Lampkin and our vice president Calvin Monese.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to be here and supporting and holding us accountable for the work.

Just a bit about our Tulsa Public Schools, and we had had a slide up there about our non-negotiables.

I don't know if it's still there, but yeah, it's not there.

No worries, but just want to make sure everyone is grounded on the work that kind of sets the frame for how we operate in our district.

We continuously improve based on data.

So just want to let everyone know that it's nice to tell a story, it's even better when there's data connected to the story that shows progress.

We use the district selected curriculum and assessment tools.

We have amazing educators in our district, and we like to put before them grade level content that is research-based and is of quality, and we hold you know all team members accountable for that, as well as making sure that the assessments that we use with our schools is appropriate and supportive.

We welcome and empower our Tulsa Public Schools families.

It's really important that we understand our role and that we can only have success that's short-lived if we do not collaborate with our families and our community.

That's what makes our change sustainable, and we create and maintain warm and supportive environments.

That speaks a lot to how we support our team members in our district, and then we lead by example.

So I just wanted to make sure that that grounding was set so that you all kind of have an understanding of the principles in which how we operate.

They're called our Tulsa Public Schools non-negotiables.

We've had some progress.

We're really excited about.

I could have had two or three, four slides of progress that we've made and just really excited, but we just decided to put one slide up here.

Um, but please know there's a lot of great work that's happening.

One of the areas that you all are very familiar with that we've been talking about for many years now, um, through you know, a couple of mayors, uh, different mayors, is that we have a chronic absenteism issue in Tulsa.

When we ended the year last year, we set at about 44% of our students are considered chronically absent, which basically means they're missing 10% or more of the school year.

So you know, almost closely close to 50% of our students have struggled with getting to school on a regular basis, and so we're happy to say that we're down as of yesterday, nearly five percentage points in chronic absenteeism, and we're up one percentage point, which is huge in the world of days for Tulsa Public Schools.

So we have seen an increase in our attendance and a decrease in our chronic absenteeism work.

Sorry, great.

Oh, lots of collaborative work there, grateful for families collaborating with us and schools being very intentional as well as community support.

We've increased our proficiency rates in every grade level in reading and math over the past two years, but again, I couch the challenge with that and say we still have a ways to go there, but we are trending in the right direction in all areas academics.

We've increased the percentage of students graduating who are earning a post-secondary credential.

So, just in a nutshell, just so you'll know what that means.

That means that you know, we have we've gone from 39% of our students to 55% of our students actually earning a credential once they graduate.

So that is students enrolled in concurrent classes, so TCC and TPS, you know, coming out with actual credit, AP pass rate.

So we've increased the number of students who not just take the AP classes, but they actually pass the test at the end of the course, so it clips them out of a responsibility in college, which you know, saves.

Yes, it is.

Really excited about that.

We have a significant number of students who have what's called the seal of my literacy certification that they've earned through Tulsa Public Schools.

I would even venture to say we have the largest number of syllabi literacy.

We started the program before the state started syllabi literacy, and then career tech, students being in career tech, Tulsa Tech, and IB course completion and passing assessments through IB.

So really proud of that number.

It's increasing.

We report this out to our board on a you know pretty consistent basis.

I think we just reported it Monday.

And so it's a part of our students' outcome folks governance model, which pretty much I'm responsible for presenting the data increase.

Was it IB?

Yeah, so international Black Laurette.

So that's pretty much Booker T is our one high school that offers IB.

And so as you know, it's our Blue Ribbon High School, it's one of our most distinguished high schools in the state and in the nation, and it's the most rigorous set of coursework a student can take.

Yes.

Mine too, on accident.

We don't even know how to.

We're like, did you really mark that class?

Oh my gosh, but she ended up making the A, which is great.

So shame on me for not believing in her ability.

Alright, so anyway, um, and so um and we've reduced the number of failing schools.

Um we've gone from 26 failing schools to 14.

Um, and we're on, thank you.

We're on a notion to decrease that even more.

We're allergic to failure, and so our work is to bring back a presentation where there's no more, no more failing schools there.

Alright, so some of our our challenges, you know, I'll just talk specifically about our budget.

Um, as you all know, across the nation, I mean, we're down about 3.6 million um fewer school age children across the nation.

You're hearing about districts having to make some really hard decisions about number of schools, number of students, their budget, all the things.

Well, Oklahoma is no different.

We are losing enrollment because we don't have as many school-aged children being one born and then going to public schools, and so the challenge is there.

Tulsa Public Schools, we've done a great job of staying steady for quite some time, but here recently we're seeing a little bit of dip in our enrollment.

So we're analyzing that, but every time we see a dip in enrollment, there's a dip in dollars.

So I just want to make that really clear when it comes to our budget and our deficiency in our dollars.

There are some very specific things that we're doing in order to write size our budget.

As you all know, we um come from a situation at the state level where there's a lot of question around Tulsa Public Schools' vitality, our ability to be efficient and transparent with our dollars, as well as our students' performance.

And so we've been doing a lot of this work, not only alongside you know, the expectation that was placed on us by the state a couple of years ago, a year ago, it's a blur, it was a lot.

And then, of course, continuously with our current board.

So I just presented to our board on Monday five the most five efficient ways that we are right size in our budget.

So I wanted to share that with you all because when you're talking about an upwards of 17, 18 million dollars, because you know, we've seen Esser Care's dollars sunset, so those dollars are gone bye-bye, and then of course, just knowing that that when there's a population dip, there's a dollar dip.

Um, here are the here's the work that we've been doing.

So $7 million cut in district office um staff members, which that was very public.

You all have probably read about that.

Very hard to do, um, and we'll have to do even more of this, you know, efficient work around number of staff members and then efficiency for how to operate our district.

We reviewed appropriate funding sources.

I I heard a little bit of that presentation from the previous.

By the way, I don't want to go after the mayor anymore.

That was a long okay.

Okay, gotta get Zach back in school.

But um, this is an education.

Maybe he's watching.

What are you saying?

But one of the things that was talked about is shifting from, you know, general fund dollars, and in his case, other dollars.

In our case, it's general fund and bond dollars and other funding sources.

And so we've been able to take a look at that.

Some things we would actually pay for out of our general fund, which we should be protecting at all times because that's our operation costs, paying for our staff members' salaries, all the things, is that we could actually been paying for stuff out of bond.

I mean, there's bond eligible things that we just needed to shift and do better.

So we've done a lot of that.

We've looked through all of our sources and figure that out.

In addition, we've got positions that are not filled.

I mean, they're vacant positions, they're established positions approved by the board, but we hadn't put anyone in those positions, but we've been able to still operate.

So why do we need to fill them?

So we've been just being really efficient with, do we really need to fill those?

I mean, it would be nice to have, but it is a must-have.

So doing that, that's saved us dollars.

We've scrutinized every single purchase because when it gets to our board members, they want to know why are you spending this much on this?

What does this mean?

So before it ever even hits the board, we as a cabinet sit down and just truly look through each piece.

And um, and then we've sold some buildings.

I mean, we've got property, um, and we have put up property for surplus.

We've worked closely with some of our partners and people are interested in our buildings as recently as our charter schools, they um have become homeowners, and we were proud of that because not only do they get a chance to have their own building and do what they want to do with their building, we get the dollars to support our uh budget.

And so just wanted to make sure you all knew some of the things that we are are doing in order to right size our budget.

I have team members here, because one thing I truly believe in is distributive leadership, and um I can't do this work without amazing team and amazing board around me.

And I compliment the board, but please know that that like they don't play and they make sure that I'm doing all the right work.

Um, but I I have uh two of my cabinet members here that I want to make sure that I um introduce.

And of course, we have um school leader and we have SAC here.

Um, Dr.

Kaiser is here, a school leader.

So I'm gonna pass it, get ready to pass it to um Sean Burkstor.

He serves as our chief of strategy and innovation.

So, in a nutshell, his job is that he takes all of the mumble jumble ideas and things that we think we're coming up with, and he brings those and say, All right, let's actually make this happen, and like what does this mean?

And like let's put some metrics to it and um let's codify um all the work.

And so, having said that, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Dr.

Johnson.

Welcome.

Morning, everybody.

It's still morning, so I get to see that.

So, obviously.

Hug, um, we were the same 2011 Teach for America course.

So it's fun to get to see you.

Seven years goes by very quickly.

Um, no, so thank you for the space.

We're really excited to talk about the work.

I'm gonna be pretty quick because I want to highlight a lot of the other parts of the discussion, but we'll still be here for more questions or detail on anything that I share.

Um, as counselor Bellis alluded to, we're so overjoyed still about Tulson's support of our bond package in April.

We had 81 82% approval across all four of these propositions, which was incredible.

Thank you to the city.

Now the work ahead of us is to actually execute on those to create the gains that we want to continue to see for students.

Um, our goal with the bond was to not have this just be a status quo bond, which schools need new roofs, which HVAC systems are out of date.

The bond dollars that we get are essential for those types of investments, but our primary goal is to accelerate student outcomes.

And we're on the right trajectory.

We need to like increase the slope of improvement and really accelerate what's possible for students.

You're gonna hear from Zach at McLean about like a success story of the type of strategies and and investments we want to make for more and more kids across the system.

So that was really the goal of this bond package, is to not just have status quo investments but really accelerate experiences for kids across the district, and we we believe in investing in engagement and connection for every student at every school, whether it's fine arts, athletics, career development.

We need kids to have some sort of connection to their school that gives them community, purpose, motivation, all of that.

You're gonna see in a few minutes, we're gonna leave you with a one-pager that actually shows all four of the propositions, how much money is in each of those, and what are some of the major investments, but some of the highlights on this slide, instructional materials, again we got to continue to drive towards literacy and numeracy across the district.

That way they can actually start looking at what we have it.

Doesn't have the bond oh yes okay.

STEM investments I mean science technology engineering math programming curriculum materials for that arts and athletics investments at every single high school one example is that kids are no longer going to have to fundraise for uniforms and equipment for sports that is all part of this bond package.

What are the booster clubs gonna do snacks?

Sometimes our public and not be stressed out about boom raising all in the driver's education.

We're in 2026 but like getting kids from place to place and being able to access opportunities exturriculars is a huge issue.

One of the ways that we think the bond can help help address that is help more and more students in high school get drivers ed.

It's also it's not only convenient it's a big expense for for students and families so that's that's coming back.

Career academies I'm not going to talk a ton about that right now because we're gonna focus on that for a lot of the discussion but this is an investment in Tulsa's workforce economy and our students over the long haul and is a way that we're really trying to drive more choice filled college and career driven experiences for students in high school in particular across the district and then the last thing I'll say about this I really believe part of the reason why this bond was so successful is we were it it was all based on feedback from community we had a citizen bond development committee that included about 30 individuals nominated by our board we had a bond survey that was open throughout the fall we had almost 600 responses to that our board led over 40 community meetings to coincide with not only the bond package but our strategic planning process that we're going through and we really believe these investments are all aligned to what Tolson's want to be true for their for their children.

Shared challenges require shared solutions TPS does not operate in a vacuum I am so proud to be in a city that realizes the interconnections between investments across the private sector city policy nonprofits all of that supporting families and youth and student outcomes there's a lot of ways that that we are partnering and continue to partner but I do want to highlight that economic opportunity and youth outcomes which are two of the priorities for the city you're gonna see that throughout the next few slides when we kind of highlight this career academies initiative and again this is not just a K-12 effort that we're trying to launch in TPS this is truly a citywide commitment over the foreseeable future to drive more opportunities for students and career career interest opportunities and career like success opportunities for kids to to really drive industry and economic mobility for students so all that said again I told you I was going to rush through that I'm still here when we get to the end if there's more questions about the process or anything happy to talk through that but I'll pass it off to Dr.

Doug.

Good afternoon thank you Sean I'm Kathy Dodd deputy superintendent and I'm excited to talk about this big initiative that we have as part of what our bond has focused on but also where our data is telling us we need to go to really improve our outcomes for all students and I am honored to have Zachary Daniels joining us here from the McLean high school.

Along with his principal, Dr.

Rob Kaiser.

And it was important that we started out with a student lens because we're not starting from zero when we talk about these amazing opportunities we want for our students.

But quite frankly, they're not consistent across all of our schools.

But as the saying goes, you know, talent is universal, but opportunity is not.

And we want the type of experience that Zach is going to speak about today to be something that is available to every single one of our students across Tulsa Public Schools.

So I want to invite Zach to tell us about what's happened in his senior year and then what's in store for him after graduation.

And Zach, before you start, Dr.

Kaiser, do you want to do the proper introduction of Zach?

And then you have a fun fact too.

I do, yeah.

So uh Zach is one of our seniors at McLean.

Uh he left a grad parade, they're doing a grad parade today.

He's been in here with you guys.

Um but it's but it's great.

I I think his story is just remarkable.

Um, I to give you a little bit of a backstory.

Zach is now a senior for us, he's gonna walk across the stage in three days.

Um, and I'm excited for him to share a little bit about kind of what his journey has been this year as a senior um and ways in which he's really set himself up for success moving forward.

The fun fact is if Mayor Nichols is still watching this, Zach played on Mayor Nichols' basketball team when he was uh when he was uh uh when he was a little guy.

So that's yeah, four or five years ago.

Was his coach, which is pretty cool.

And then you have a city councilor fun fan.

Yes, and uh Mr.

Archie was uh a Munro uh Munro demonstration academy team that worked for you.

That's right, yeah, way back in the day.

So he's uh it's great to see him.

Um but Zach, I'll kick it to you, man.

Go ahead.

Oh, I'll see you in McLean.

I've had a little bit of different college and career readiness opportunities, like I was in the certification program and I already finished it.

I got all four certifications.

This is a manufacturer, production technician certification program.

When I graduate, I'm graduating with 12 colleges.

With the opportunity that I got, I also got a different opportunity for internship and a job at Webco, the manufacturing company.

And I've already started there, I've been working there about two months, and I'll finna go full time, make a problem.

And I wouldn't have been able to get the opportunity if I wouldn't put myself out there to what's been handed to us with the different opportunities in McLean.

This has been a lot of different stuff that we we get that we don't even realize we get like you try to put yourself out there because I see when WIPCO came to my school and gave a little presentation, but nobody walked up to them after to see how to get into that car.

What do I need to do to do something like this?

But I knew since I was doing the TCC program, which I really didn't want to do at first.

Put me through there and I'll look through it and they seemed like some might be interested in and I'll send them some more manufacturing, I'll see how much they pay.

So I walked up tour and I gave them our resume, and I ended up getting the uh interview, and I started working right after that.

Wow, that's exciting.

Very good.

Next fall and we'll go to TCC for hopefully the same thing.

Well done.

Nice way to stay comfortable.

Thank you.

So Zachary, you have a job waiting for you once you graduate.

And you'll be making more than pretty much all your peers.

Right?

More than all these counselors, yeah.

You know, Zach is very humble.

Uh he's very humble.

Um, but he did he joined the CPT program with Tulsa Community College at the start of this year.

Um during that time, he's now passed all four of his certification um degree uh areas.

So he's not only has 12 college credits, he landed his internship.

The internship now turned into a full-time job, so as soon as he graduates from McLean in three days, he now has a full-time job waiting for him in this industry.

Now, also again, Zach is humble.

He's not gonna tell you, this is not like uh I'm just here like filing papers.

He's working with heavy machinery.

He's working the crane, he's working the different aspects in there, moving on full-time.

Um, and he's really set himself up.

He's excited, he's now has the job, TCC, tell you a little bit more.

He's he's really looking to get into the uh Air National Guard.

And then be able to uh work on some aero uh mechanics with planes moving forward.

So, you know, he would be the first to tell you he didn't have any, this was not really in his purview when he first started with that McLean this senior year.

Um and so for him to kind of have this pathway now, it's is really special, and he's really serving as a mentor and leader to a lot of kids in our school just to say, hey, try this opportunity because this is what it could turn into for example.

In fact, the guys you're working with are older, you said 20 something, right?

Twenty all the way to like 60 C.

So you're the young.

All right, way to represent the Boston.

So jump in.

Uh congratulations on that.

You have accomplished, you said you will be enrolling in TCC?

Yes, we will.

Okay, so when you it's time for you to take government.

Yes.

So government class, which is a requirement now.

Thankfully, I'm so glad they put that as a requirement because so many people don't know understand government.

So make sure you can know that we'll make sure.

We are so excited to showcase Zachary.

We also know that he has missed some school today.

And so if it's up to you guys how late you stay and what you know, principal, yeah, you can make that decision about how long you can around with that.

Thank you for doing this.

We have to use the I'm getting we were gonna have Bailey's working on it.

Oh, yeah.

Can we get a quick photo of Zachary and City Council members?

Yeah, or if we have someone, they sit down.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, I was just working on this.

Let's uh we're gonna take it.

Take it by the flags.

Um, okay, right here.

Good point.

Yeah, we have it.

Okay, here we go.

No, no, you go back right now.

Here I'd actually, oh, I haven't.

Of course, we're talking about it.

So we have awesome.

Okay.

Okay, so I think it's got time.

Alright, let's go by.

Let's go by the thank you.

Okay.

Oh, there are any issues right here.

Yeah, right.

Or if you just want to send you a reasonable email.

You go in the middle.

Okay.

He used to talk about it.

I don't know where you're going to say.

Uh, he's left.

It looked like he had something.

I squeezed that counselor, you're always in the middle.

I know.

Bangle.

Alright, ready.

One, two, three.

Nice.

Congratulations.

Thank you, Zach.

We'll see you later.

Thanks, Dr.

Kaiser.

It should be.

Oh, we need to do it.

Thanks for that.

Well, we're coming back.

And on the record shout out to Bailey, who just rustled up all sorts of counsel cards.

We couldn't let them go without some.

Oh, good.

He got challenge points, he got the coffee mugs.

Yeah, he got all sorts of stuff so that he'll know he was here.

That's a good swag.

So you give him a bit of a budget.

Thank you all for that.

Yes, Dr.

Johnson pointed out she didn't want to follow the mayor.

I really don't want to follow Zach.

But we really did want to start with him because this work that we're about to talk about today requires a different way of thinking.

It requires a different way of working and a different way of budgeting.

But he's really the why that we're trying to make this a part of our core ideology at Tulsa Public Schools, something that's baked into the fabric of the way we do secondary schools at our nine comprehensive high schools, grading in part of that work also at our alternative schools, so that again every student has the opportunity that that Zach has had.

So we're we're talking about college and career academies.

And when we speak about that, we're saying that we want every student to have coursework within their high school course day that aligns to industry pathways and expectations and opportunities after they leave us in high school.

And so the work that we're doing here is based on our knowledge that when students feel deeply engaged and connected to the work that they're doing during the school day, and they see relevance in what they're doing to their next step after high school.

The data show us that attendance, behavior, and course performance improve.

Those are what we have referred to as the ABCs.

So when we do this work, attendance behavior course performance improves, our students are on track to get graduate, and then their opportunities after life after high school improve exponentially.

So the structure of what we're speaking about is not people often get confused and think we're talking about replicating Tulsa Tech.

This is very different.

This we're talking about the coursework that is offered primarily through some core courses, but primarily through electives and experiences that students get within their seven hour school day that's offered on the campus of their high school, as well as through connectivity to TCC, Tulsa Tech, and internships.

So when we speak about this work, we're talking about academies that like what's it's shown here in the example, an engineering and innovation academy with pathways that are underneath those academies that give students choice.

So if you think about it like the example high school would be like a university, so you can think of that as example university, the colleges would be like what you're familiar with the College of Engineering, the College of Business, the College of Health and Human Services, and then there are degree programs that are what within and under those academies.

So our academies within our high schools are going to look very similar in that structure.

So not a building, definitely a strategy.

Now the work is already underway and has a lot of buy-in, thankfully, from our principals and our teachers already in Tulsa Public Schools.

So we've had a chance to build the academy model on the data that we've gleaned from our students from enrollment.

We've looked at historically what students have shown that they're interested in, what our current students are interested in, what the city needs, what the city needs, what the chamber has also given us as areas of high demand, high wage job opportunities right here in Tulsa County.

And so we've come up with four academies.

You see those represented in the yellow, orange, blue, and green within the circle.

So on the graphic creative arts, business and leadership, health and human services, engineering and innovation, and those are the academies, and then the pathways you see listed out in that quadrant in the same color that students would have a chance to choose from.

Now, in your packet, you have an example of this work, and this shows you what it looks like from a student lens.

So again, if you pull out this particular handout, you can see the engineering in green, creative arts and media in yellow, business and health and human services.

And we've designed this with Zach in mind.

We think we go back to Zach being an eighth grader or a ninth grader, and we're telling kids that if you enjoy things like problem solving research and analysis, you may be interested in the engineering and innovation academy.

So this is designed to help families understand the different experiences that are now available to them and will be available in the future through Tulsa Public Schools that are related to the career academy model.

And if you flip the paper over on the back, you have a chance to see some of the areas where our principals and teachers have already begun deciding where these career academies will be focused in our different high schools across the city.

So this is exciting for us to see what is in store.

It's work that's already underway, and then it's work that is planned for additional execution in the future.

We did take our principals and teachers on a couple of trips because this isn't work that's just happening in TPS.

We've seen this happen across the nation in places like Akron in Birmingham.

We've taken groups to the Center for Advanced Professional Studies to allow them to see what this actually looks like in action, and our principals have a lot of buy-in and excitement around how this is going to change what we offer in our schools.

So our long-term investment in the district is about making sure that this is something we can continue to fund overall.

We've all mentioned the bond.

This is baked into the bond strategy.

It's a big part of the bond to make sure that we're using those dollars for capital improvement to create the spaces to get the materials and the equipment in place at our high schools so that we can begin offering these academies.

We have some things already in place in pockets, like we mentioned with Zach's program.

But what we're talking about now, starting in the near future, is being able to use these bond dollars to make this available to all students at all sites.

So the strategy behind that is ensuring it's baked into our funding strategy, it's also baked into our staffing plan, and it's with deep partnership with Tulsa Community College, with Tulsa Tech, and with industry, because we're not one of the reasons why this will be sustainable is that it's not completely on the shoulders of Tulsa Public Schools to do alone.

And we have done that very intentionally.

We've been very collaborative and grateful to our partners in TCC and Tulsa Tech specifically, that they are cognizant of where we're going in this work, and they have helped us align the courses that are available to TCC with our pathways.

So students are taking some of their elective courses with Tulsa Public Schools, but they're also able to take courses.

Let's talk about the medical field.

They're able to take an anatomy and physiology course at Tulsa Public Schools, but they may also be taking a medical terminology course at TCC, or they may be taking a biomedical science program at Tulsa Tech.

So the reason this is going to be sustainable and the reason it's going to have reach to potentially for all of our students is because it's something that we're not owning and trying to implement solely alone.

It's becoming part of our core ideology in the way we do school, and it's changing the way we think about secondary instruction.

So getting a peek at the timeline, the good news about this work is while we see this as a primary strategy, the legislature happened to pass legislation affecting our graduate graduating class of 2030, which is our current eighth grade class, incoming freshmen, that allows for more flexibility in their schedules, takes away some of the required coursework, gives them more room in the schedule to take these types of courses that have far more relevance in their lives and that they have a lot more excitement about.

So we do want to set appropriate expectations to say we won't flip a switch tomorrow, even though the bond has passed, even though we are planning for scaling this initiative, it won't be that when students enroll in next year.

It won't be that every one of these pathways and programs are built out immediately.

So we're trying to set appropriate expectations to show that this will grow with the cohort of 2026, that freshman class.

We will have a freshman academy across all of our schools to get that early exposure and help them understand what options are available to them when they begin enrolling in the sophomore year, and then each year that cohort will build.

So we'll add new courses, we'll add new partnerships, we'll add new pathways.

You have more and more examples of Zach.

And Dr.

Dodd, I may I ask you, and we're also starting the conversations earlier as well.

So in middle school, when someone says, I want to be a doctor, we're also saying, Well, let's look at that from a health field perspective, not necessarily saying, Well, let's get you in medical school at eighth grade, right?

Exactly.

And we've even built into the bond some of these exploratory courses in elementary, especially around STEM fields.

So within the bond, experiences starting in elementary, being built on in middle school, and then being fully available in high school.

So we know that students need to see that early on, because sometimes it's those decisions that they're making in middle school that's impacting whether or not they can get into Tulsa Tech, for instance, or impacting their ability to be able to score the requisite 19 on the ACT to be able to enroll in TCC.

So we need them to see early on these fabulous opportunities, like Zach said, that he didn't even understand was available to him, so they can begin to plan and make those decisions and to have exposure really low risk exposure to all of these different opportunities so they can figure out what they are interested in.

Because we all know of examples where students don't really know, they go to college, they enroll, they spend a lot of time and even more money in something, only to figure out I don't even like this.

And so we're trying to give kids that early chance to see what's possible and to give them some at bats at different experiences throughout their careers, so that even if they enroll in something and say this isn't for me, that's not a failure.

That's actually great information to know, and we're allowing it the flexibility for them choosing something else.

And so we're we're excited to see this rollout happen for our students.

Yes.

Excellent note.

Thank you, Dr.

Dodd.

Before we talk any more about the reason and the impact of this work, I wanted Tristan, if you don't mind, who works directly with our secondary schools, student achievement for secondary, so middle and high school.

Tristan Blank, if you could tell us how many people right now are raising their hand and showing interests because we just had our first luncheon, we got two more coming up.

Yeah.

Thank you, Dr.

Johnson.

And my name's Tristan.

I serve as the director of secondary strategy for Tulsa Public Schools.

So I get to support this initiative primarily, and so it's been just the thing that pops me out of bed every day, is working directly with our principals as they build this initiative from the ground up in their high schools.

So, as Dr.

Dodd alluded to, this is not something the district team is coming and saying, You're gonna do this in your building, make it work.

We showed them the model and what was possible and what it means for student outcomes, and they were so excited, they demanded much time on the calendar to build this and make it come to life as fast as possible.

So it's very exciting and um lunch and large, you're good.

Yes, okay, the lunch and learn.

So we have been really strategic about how we have publicly talked about this because the bond includes much of the funding for this initiative.

So this strategy has been in the works for a while, and it builds on a lot of our board goals that we have already been seeing rapid improvement on, which is great.

Um, and we have started strategically inviting our business and community partners in who are already invested in our school sites in some way, whether it's via supporting student internships, collaborating with us on student projects, advisory councils, things like that.

We have three opportunities for those partners to come in.

We had our first one last Friday, and we've had an overwhelming response.

Over a hundred RSVPs from our business community of organizations and companies here in Tulsa, raising their hand to say, how can I support?

And what you have in front of you today is what we've given out in those spaces so you can see exactly in that industry partnership guide, the opportunities that we're building for Tulsa businesses to come in and partner on these initiatives because we know some of the industries in Tulsa that we need expertise in.

We're not going to be able to find a teacher who's going to leave industry and come in and teach full time for us in those subject areas.

We know it's going to take partnership, and so we've built those opportunities, whether it's a small mom and pop business or a huge company here in Tulsa, there's a way for every business partner to plug in and support this work.

Because as we've already said, this is not just an initiative that we're standing up alone, it's a full economic workforce development strategy that we're building internally for our students.

So it's been really exciting.

Um getting to share about that with the business community is has been incredible.

Thank you, Tristan.

Sean, Alice, they go.

Sure.

I'll be quick on this one too, but I've hopefully we've made enough connections to just how this work supports not only TPS students, but is actually part of the city's overall agenda.

Um the Alice report that came out for the first time in Oklahoma last year, that's been in a number of other states, but Oklahoma first had had our report last year from the United Way really, I think illuminated how many more families than just the traditional families living in poverty metric that I think we're used to talking about.

How many people beyond that actually really are struggling with meeting day-to-day needs, especially if they are if they have larger families, students, child care costs, you know, all that those things add up.

I think the Alice report really revealed that people that are working and are doing everything asked of them are still really struggling in a lot of times, depending on what careers they have and what types of expenses they have.

Um, our part of how we we really believe that TPS can help address that is creating opportunities for students and making sure they're successful when they access those.

I think Zach actually talked a little bit about that.

Part of this was pushing him to to enroll in some of the TCC coursework, and then we needed to make sure that he was actually successful in it.

Like both of those things matter.

Jobs and internships and continuing to increase those opportunities and align that across the city.

I think the city can really help amplify that with TPS.

And that's something that like, as you see these cohorts, Dr.

Dodd showed, like kind of expanding over the coming years.

Hopefully, the demand and interest for industry quality internships is also growing, and we're able to scale that infrastructure.

Transportation needs and being really flexible and creative in terms of how we help students get to these opportunities on a reliable basis, and then continuing to align services to families and students across the board.

Um, so Alice data I think has been really helpful in just illuminating the scope of what's in front of us to create more and more economic mobility.

Thank you, Sean.

So career academies really wrapping up, we're representing with the structure to see how they impact the city of Tulsa.

So this slide really calls to action both both entities, TPS and the city to look for ways that we can partner together intentionally to launch this work, and we've already seen that investment from some, as Tristan said, some of our big industries, big and small.

Montereau is currently hosting some of our students with internships, Webco, Zico, Bill Might, St.

Francis, and then we even have students that are in internships in our own district because we wanted to model that we're asking other people to do this work.

We have them scattered throughout our district as well, and now we see the city as a great potential partner.

We actually, I mentioned going to Akron, and we met with officials from the United Way, from the city, from other community entities, and they they said something that really stuck with me.

They said, Akron is freakishly connected, and it's freakishly connected in a way that benefits students, and when they started to really flesh out what that means, they talked about how transportation, public transportation, gets the students to not only school if you're a secondary student.

The city actually takes on the responsibility for transporting all of the students to school, which normalizes the idea that all students are on a city bus getting from home to school, and because this the students are very fluent in knowing how to navigate city transportation.

Of course, they use city transportation to access their internships.

So they can literally get themselves anywhere they need to be across the city, and the city itself has collaborated deeply with the school district.

We got to see their first responder academy.

And when you look at the pathways here that are on the back of your handout, you'll see we have a public safety academy planned at both Hale and McLean.

And so there's an obvious opportunity for, again, I say the word opportunity a lot because it's in front of us.

There's a chance for this for us to have a public-public partnership.

If you think of it like a United Way loaned executive model, where we have police, fire, and IMSA officials who are actually the teachers in our program.

And we're able to partner with the city in a way that utilizes that expertise.

We fill your vacancies.

That's exactly right.

We get our students the credentials that they need to fill the position that you all need filled.

And your management, your HR teams in each of those areas are already getting to know these students in a low-risk way and already have that recruitment effort because I know we're not filling our academy classes as a wife of a retirement tells the police officer, I know we don't have enough individuals that are going into this area.

So we see a potential there.

We also see potential for something around transportation that we would love to do with the city in the future, and even understanding that relationship again between student engagement and student performance in attendance behavior and course performance or grades, then having a youth sports collaboration with the park system and get ensuring that our students feel engaged with school, that they are developing those leadership capacities that we know that team sports would be able to build.

So we wanted to put some things out there that were just real tangible examples of ways that we think we can strengthen what we're doing as a district and collaborate with you.

I know that we're at lunchtime, and so I'm very mindful of that.

That's the reason that we're condensing everything.

But as you can feel the passion oozing out of us, this is our day-to-day work, and we have challenges around it.

We have challenges around this initiative, but thank you all for the time for us to express some of the things that we're doing in Tulsa Public Schools, and we'll open it up if you have questions of us.

Yeah, so so we have Archie and then Counselor Hull Harper.

Did you have a question or were you just she was flagging for the doctor?

Yeah, I'll be very quick.

Uh number one.

Thank you all for being here and for presenting my children.

So they're part of TPS.

Daughter was just accepted to Carver.

And so we're, you know, I tell people I say I'm for school choice, and the majority of people chose to put the kids in public school, might as well support it.

That's right.

And so uh appreciate the work that you all are doing.

Also, um Western is in my district Brian Reed, it's been very communicative.

Also, Irma Sandoval just wanted to give a shout-outs to some of the folks that are doing great work.

Um I have two questions, one is short, and then one maybe needs a little bit more explanation.

Businesses on the west side in particular, if they want to connect with what you all are doing, how can they do that?

And then Dr.

Dodd, a pleasure to meet you.

You were talking about the um I don't see many numbers connected to the funding of the academy.

Maybe our bond dollars can't be used for operating expenses, but like, can you maybe um clarify, like, how is the um how is this sustainable with the with the bond dollars?

So the the very first thing that we did was we all separate bond dollars and general fund dollars.

Your questions about bond.

I'm gonna first say the biggest way it's sustainable is working it into the staffing plan, so substituting out electives that are less popular for students.

Maybe they're taking PE just because that's the only thing they see on the list that they want, but they may not really want to be in PE, they may want to sit in the stands and not dress out, right?

We're we're trading out, we're using interest from students, and then making elective courses aligned to student interests and using that FTE or that you know that teacher allocation to then teach a more relevant elective connected to a pathway rather than something that they've just taken as a default.

But we had to work it into our staffing allocations so we weren't relying on grant funds or philanthropy or someone to sustain it because we all know there's huge risk in doing that.

And so that's number one.

Number two, the bond dollars help with us outfitting the spaces to make these programs work because just like Tulsa Tech, if you've you know you've been to Tulsa Tech, you see that when you're in the medical area, you have the the interactive dummies and things like that that you you can medical equipment, medical equipment when you go to the first responder academy, you may have simulated simulators, you may also have a police car that's there, and those kinds of things that students have a chance to get comfortable with.

So it does take capital expenditures to create those spaces because it's different than a textbook and a or a Chromebook that's delivering something online, these are very hands-on, interactive experiences that students would have, and we're using bond dollars to fund it.

And just in the future, I mean, just like us, maybe there's additional bonding to maintain those assets once you build them.

Absolutely.

So, you know, we're on a five-year, um, six-year bond cycle, so every time a new bond um cycle comes up, we'll have to reintroduce and represent this information.

But I also will add to what Dr.

Dodd has shared.

You know, bond is great because we get the stuff, the infrastructure, the buildings, the air conditions, the vehicles, but we can't pay for people.

Right, you know, um, that's the that's the part that is really really difficult when it comes to sustainability.

So we do have meetings scheduled.

I think we have a meeting tomorrow with Tulsa Tech where we're gonna have conversations about our build-ins, extension opportunities with tech.

Um, we're in communications with um the state at the state level around apprenticeships and externships and internships, and so we are attempting right now to establish our ecosystem of support so that it is long, you know, long standing and we can sustain it.

And I can I can connect with you for the West Side Businesses, yes, absolutely.

And what I was gonna tell you too is in the the very last page of this industry guide that you have, there's a QR code that links directly to an interest form that they can follow because we've been doing a lot of this work at the school level with principals.

Many of the businesses that have come to principals, like Brian Reed that you mentioned, they've connected them directly with us to say, hey, let's get them involved on the front end.

We've invited them to those lunch and learn opportunities.

But yes, any additional folks that you want to get involved, you can send them directly to us or through that.

Very good, and then like five more seconds.

Um, I'd love to see it push down even further into the middle school, of course.

I have a partner in the community that is saying financial literacy, financial literacy.

There's like you have all these resources, do financial literacy.

Maybe I'll connect with you also about financial literacy.

Yeah, it is, it is a requirement.

So our students actually have to take financial literacy courses in order to graduate, but then also we partner with junior achievement, where our students do get um, you know, some exposure to financial literacy.

There's always room for more.

So I'll just say that.

Students are actually asking for more and more of that.

I was one of the volunteers for Jay this year.

Nice.

That is a fun program.

All right, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um, thank you, Counselor Bellas, for putting this together.

I think it's very timely, especially given what is on our agenda coming up.

And I also think it's really important that we give credit where credit's due, and it's clear to me that the gains that you all have presented is the result of the TBS-led strategies under your leadership, the cabinet, uh, your educators, your staff, certainly your board members, which I know we have two here today, and of course, the students and the families.

You know, five years ago we were all trying to learn from home, so like this turnaround is significant, and I also wonder if less kindergartners is also a result of a pandemic where parents, potential parents are like, nope, we're not doing this.

I think that we as city legislators have worked with previous mayors and this current administration to determine the role that the city of Tulsa can play.

I love what you're talking about having our experts be the educators, and I think that we could fund that, right?

Because you can't fund so how do we do these offsets?

Yeah, um, so I would love to explore that further because you're right, the best future public safety officers coming out of TPS or union or jinx, but like local folks that want to do this work, and these are career paths.

This is not something you do for three years and then move on, hopefully.

So we always are looking at how we as a municipality can improve these outcomes for children and families.

It's been an ongoing discussion at least for the last year.

I don't know that we have total consensus on what that looks like for us as a municipal government.

And so I just have three questions.

You can take them and answer us later by email if you want to, or if you feel comfortable speaking.

But I just wanted to say all that on the record that I see that these strategies are something that you all have been working on.

And I want to make sure that we as a city are not trying to put an umbrella over your accomplishments and own them ourselves, or even worse, not provide the resources that you actually need us to provide.

Sometimes, what do we say?

It can't be for us without us, can't be about us without us.

So I'm hearing a little bit knowing that we're working on some things, and I'm thinking we're a little off target of what I'm hearing you all say you could use from us.

So, you know, we have this mayor office of children, youth and families, and a contractor, and I wanted to know if there's a direct operational role in the attendance, academic achievements, is credentialing, the whole presentation that you just gave us today.

Like, what if you can say that office has helped get these outcomes that you're presenting to us today?

And if the answer is there isn't, then I think that's something we need to hear.

The other question I had for our board members as the other electeds at the table that have to interface with the public largely the same way we do to justify dollars.

Has the mayor's office of children, youth and families or the contractor, impact Tulsa approached you all directly, presented you a work plan or a proposal of how you know these things intersect, and then the final question I have for anyone is we've heard about some useful supports that this public-public uh partnership could be.

And I just wanted to know as we are grappling with how to make investments with you heard earlier, like dollars that we have to really pinpoint would it be direct programming or these internships, transportation, child care, workforce partnerships, or something else, and what level of funding would be meaningful for improving what you're already doing.

So those are my questions.

I know I kind of rapid-fired, I didn't know if this is like take home and respond by an email too.

Maybe you want to speak to it now.

I mean, we are in a public meeting, so and I I did want to hear from the school board members because I know a lot has been said about what the city is doing for schools, and I see what you're doing for schools, and I want to make sure that I, as a colleague, want to be sensitive.

Like all the wins are all of our wins because we all love Tulsa and we all love Tulsins, but clearly there's some things that you are strategically doing and making hard decisions about.

And so if our office is not engaged with you, like we need to know.

So I would just like to know either now or later.

Yeah, so I just want to officially go on record and say that I was doing everything I can to get you all to lunch, but I am gonna start answering some of these questions.

I tried, you tried, and this is a special that we don't all get together in this way.

So that's what I honor it.

Yeah, okay.

All right, I didn't want to be responsible for blood sugar and have them.

You know how to take care of ourselves.

Alright, so so to just to start off, I just want to say that um I um feel honored to sit on a cabinet that is the executive cabinet for the mayor's office of children, youth, and families.

I've never, you know, in all of my years I've grown up in Tulsa, I've been a Tulson, you know, been here.

This is born, bred, and raised, and we've never had a city that has made the decision to even put children title inside of anything that's like a you know, systemic um set of planning, programming, alignment towards supporting outcomes with a school district.

So I think that it's it's it's definitely powerful to bring a lot of people from different entities around a table and say, all right, here are our problems.

Like, what do we need to do as both a city as a district, in order to move the needle?

So the work around the mayor's office of children, youth, and family.

When whenever there's a conversation about outcomes and data, just keep in mind that it's Tulsa Public Schools, it's union and it's Jeep.

So I want to be very mindful and make sure that I'm stating that, but as it relates specifically to Tulsa Public Schools, years ago, before there was ever a mayor's Office of Children, Youth and Families, we have a responsibility to do things for students and outcomes.

So we've always focused on what it means to increase, you know, decrease chronic absenteeism, increase student achievement.

That's the work of our district.

The board has challenged our team, me as superintendent to actually see growth in that area.

So that work was already hit the races, gone because that is my responsibility to make sure we see gains.

The great thing about having a mayor's office of children, youth, and families is that the alignment is powerful.

So to be able to sit at a table where I'm looking at, you know, the head of the health department, I'm also looking at United Wayhead, I'm looking at just different entities and saying, hey, we got a third grade retention issue, and it's bigger than us.

We don't know, we don't know we're gonna have third graders in third grade for you know, like we could have four years of third graders in the third grade.

We need help with that.

So to have that level of conversation and alignment is is powerful, and I'm glad to be at the seat to do that.

Um, there's some very specific things that as a result of some work that had been in collaboration with the mayor's office of family youth and ship, mayor's office of children, youth, and family.

Um, that I just want to call out.

Um, you know, when we're talking about pre-K, again, that's a big one.

And the Mayor's Office of Children, Youth and Family, as well as impact has worked closely with our district to increase the number of pre-K kids that are enrolled in TPS.

Um, you know, pre-K for all and just making a database so that it's not hard for families to figure out how to enroll their kids.

That's helped a lot.

Um, in addition to that, you know, there's the walking school bus work that's community work where you know where we have families that do feel like it's dangerous for their children to walk.

Um, there's been a lot of work stood up with various community partners, by the way, contributing to the work.

There's several other pieces that I can articulate right now, but I do just want to say that the work of what I perceive and what I've you know, I've been to all the meetings except for one.

I had to miss it's a convening of the various people that need to be at the table to talk about the vitality and the and the support of youth.

Youth are our future in Tulsa, and so we have the responsibility to take those convenings, and I say we, I'm talking about the three superintendents who've been invited to the table and actually take that back to our teams and actualize that work in real time, knowing that we have all of these different entities' levels of support.

So, with that, that has happened, and so when it comes to future and what we would love to see around this work, I think a recognition of what we can't do because we just don't have the funds.

I'm just gonna be very honest.

Um, we would love to stand up what we would call year-round programming for our young people where they don't have lag time to get into stuff in June and July and convening places and doing things.

It would be nice if we had an opportunity to have some places where our young people can go that's healthy.

Dr.

Dodd talked about parks and recreations.

We started work with parking creations because mayor Nichols asked us as soon as he became mayor, he said, you know, I need you to reach out to Ana America.

We need to do some things with our parks and recreations.

We started that work, we teed it all the way up to being ready to go, and then it was basically like, yep, and ooh, funding.

And so that was a problem both for us and for city, and so it's kind of like the plan is there, but then we don't have the means to actually see that um, you know, make that go any further because we talked about elementary sports, and we have this thing where we really want to get our elementary kids engaged more with sports.

Um, in addition to that, um, you know, so so that's one example.

Um, we also, of course, just have this this very intensive work around student achievement and um chronic absenteeism, and then just ensuring that we're doing all the keeping teachers in our district, not leaving, not going out of the state, all the things.

So I bring that information to the meetings when I go to the meetings of the mayor's office of children, youth, and family.

All of that information, I believe, has been baked into the priorities that the mayor's office of children, youth and families have focused on, and these kind of things take time.

Um, I think the the foundation of putting everybody in the same room and having conversations about the city's problems, which is student achievement, which is chronic absenteeism, which is you know, a need for families to continue to be supportive of our work, is the work of the entire city.

And I believe that that is what the mission is of the mayor's office of children, youth and family.

But I also know that at some point we all get to a place where we don't know where we're gonna go after that when the resources are not there.

You know, you can only do so much with what you have.

Absolutely.

And so that's how I would I would answer that question.

And you know, there are there are national models for how this works in other places, and I think that we would be better for it if we would continue to do like the really serious alignment work, collaborative work.

Um, our outcomes will just shoot out the roof in future, um, if we do that well, and that's then that's district and city together.

That's really helpful.

Do you know?

So, this is a really quick follow-up to what she said.

For that parks programming, do you know who has it?

Maybe it's just looks like there like the dollar amount, that was the delta.

We'll get that to you.

Dr.

Dodd will you kind of spareheaded a lot of that with me.

So we'll we'll get that, we'll get that to you.

Yeah, I don't want to go.

Gilbert, Dutton, and lunch.

We still have to hear briefly from the school.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I was just gonna I I also want to be sure that Dr.

Johnson does get credit because having served on the board for four years now through a lot of changes for the district and a lot of challenges, and Dr.

Johnson these past few years has really just pulled us through and led um our board and our and team Tulsa in in the progress that we're seeing, and we're really excited about that.

And I think I can speak for all of our board that that we're really proud of her work and the entire district and our board's work, um, and so uh we're excited about what's in store, but but I'm also glad to be here to maybe find more ways to collaborate together because to answer your question in my time on the board, especially since this has developed this um cabinet.

I I've heard the reports and then from the media about the city's role that I don't think me, even as board member, board president, it's been clear what the contributions were, and so I'd like for us to all be learn more about that and work together, and for the community to know.

I would echo uh board president Lampins' uh sentiments, um, even though this is my second year on the board, um the improvements and the changes that you see in a district that has 33,000 students and is the third largest employer in Tulsa County.

Those kind of student outcomes don't happen just because the mayor opens an office overnight.

Um, the changes in chronic absenteeism, the student outcomes, those are long systematic changes that happen over time, and that happened because of our educators and because of our students and our families and the community.

That doesn't happen just because an office opens, and so I want to give credit to our district for that hard work and our superintendent and the leadership team.

So I really I think it's important that that is said and that that happens.

Um so I really want to give that credit.

I have not been uh I've not received any contact in my role as vice president of the board from the mayor's office of children, youth and family or from Impact TOLSA.

Um, they have not approached me.

Um, so that would be my response to that question.

And for that, and I appreciate the board leadership for for sharing that.

I'll just say that one of the uh levels of um extension that I want to offer.

I know Deputy Mayor Reyes is in the room, is that any time you believe it's time and ready to come and present to our both cabinet and our board, you definitely have an open invitation to do that.

I think the timing is right for that level of presentation to our board and to our our cabinet so that there's more you know information share and clarity amongst the work that we're doing and the work that the mayor's office of children youth and families are doing.

Um, but again, I have not missed any of the cabinet meetings but one, and I bring that information back for sure to our cabinet.

Probably can do even more to bring information back to our board, but I do think that it's befitting to have a presentation.

That's a formal presentation to all of the city and all of our constituencies who just want to know and who need to know.

Absolutely, all right.

Alright, so I'm gonna put my PTA hat back.

Okay, we're on it in quite some time.

Okay.

I'm gonna wear it now.

So everything that you guys are doing is so exciting.

And especially the uh the different career academies, you all are making a difference in children's lives.

You are making school a place where children want to be and where they want to go.

So thank you for that.

Um school is not school that it used to be, it's more exciting, it's more um innovating.

You know, people just I every morning I go out and I run with my dogs, I see kids walking to Memorial, and I know who they are, and I expect to see them every morning walking, and I say good morning to them.

And uh this one particular student, I as I was passing him again.

I said, Have a great day at school, and he was like, Yeah, right.

The next day, said good morning to him, came back around.

I was like, Did you have a good day yesterday?

He goes, I sure did.

And ever since then, I mean it's it's opened, you know, a great conversation.

He's he's no longer like oh, you stupid lady, um, you know, attitude.

It's more, hey, how are you doing, you know?

Um, so getting them, you know, excited uh to to on his way to school because most of those kids they walk that trail, the fortune trail, and they get to one point, and they will turn around and walk the opposite direction.

So, but what you are doing is making a difference, and I just want to say thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

That means a lot.

Thank you so much.

So, with that being said, everything is super exciting that you're doing.

Um on the previous council when I served, um Mayor Bynum, Counselor Bynum at that time, uh, did ask the different uh districts to come to the table to have a meeting to talk about what the partnership between what the city can do and what uh the school districts need from the city.

I would like to get that going again.

I would love to sit down, have everybody at the table before school starts.

Because everything that you're talking about right now, we should be helping.

We should we should be looking at all different opportunities of what we can do.

So when you talk about transportation, uh, what can we do with I know it's not Tulsa Transit anymore, but what can we do with our public transportation system to again help students uh get to school and make sure that they get there?

When you talk about the um these college and career academies, the uh the first one that popped out in my mind, of course, is the public safety.

I know several officers that would be phenomenal in that position.

Two twin brothers who are one of our yes, the Safaris brothers.

They would be phenomenal because they're former teachers, yeah.

So they yes, yes, so along with Officer Alexander, who is already at McLean almost every single day.

So um, so those are opportunities for us to work together, but we have to continue this dialogue, not just here today, and then us go get lunch, and then that's it.

But what can we do in the middle of the summer to coordinate efforts so that we can uh we can continue um making school a better place for our students for our kids.

I love that.

Counselor Gilbert, thank you for that because we're gonna get that scheduled, yeah.

Okay, I love that.

We love that opportunity.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

That's bingo and then lunch.

I can take my responses via email.

Okay.

Um I also want to talk about Tulsa Parks and working together with TPS.

I think it's imperative.

We don't have enough community centers.

Um, I was just um speaking with the mayor a couple weeks ago about trying to get one in my district because we don't have one, and it would be a great partnership for the students, and I have a high ratio of children in the McKinley uh Mitchell area that could utilize and benefit from those services.

Also partnering with the county at our county city county libraries.

I think it's important.

I have one library in my district, and that's Maxwell, and they only stay open till 6.

And I want to know how we can work as a city body with our county commissioners and Kimberly Johnson with the Tulsa County City County Libraries on having those benefits available to all students.

The fact that there's just one in my district is really disheartening.

And I also want to tell uh Calvin Monese thank you for setting me up yesterday at McKinley.

I met with uh Candy Kimball and their student body, city council, their student body council, and we had a very robust discussion.

They gave me a tour of the school, and without these resources and availability to be able to partner with City Council even has been uh amazing, and I think that this is a great way to start partnering uh with the city as a whole, the county, uh Tulsa Parks, the children, youth, and families, whatever we can do to help create these connections.

Um I really would like to be a part of that.

Thank you again, Counselor Dunn for going.

Really appreciate it.

It was a it was a great time.

Those kids were amazing.

So glad you were there.

Oh, thank you for that.

Yeah, it was amazing.

Thank you.

I'll get some information back to you.

So we can do that.

Counselor Finkle.

So I apologize, and another obligation.

Four-legged kind.

Um they're here.

Do you ever want if you want to go see them?

They're here.

So I apologize.

I missed the discussion.

But I want to tell you, just um, on my part.

Thank you for the work that you're doing.

We are on that upward trend.

Um, you guys know the needs of the students.

Um, environment is always important.

Um, one of the discussions that I've heard over and over from some of the folks who don't have kids in schools are about bike lanes.

Um, and I know the one that's near East Central.

I said that's a non-starter for me because I see kids riding their bikes.

I do see kids walking through the school.

We see neighborhoods consistently go through these changes.

Um, it wasn't just two or three years ago.

I didn't have kids playing in the in the streets and along the sidewalks or uh sidewalks.

Let me put that by reverse side.

My headache is kind of affected me in that way.

Um kids riding their bikes and kids playing in.

Um the challenge for me though is like at East Central, right?

And as you're looking at that specific building, East Central High School, the lack of windows, and and there's just this constant uh impression that it's more of a prison than a learning institution because of that lack of life.

But I do like the partnership with the Y.

Um so there's some there's really some good things that are happening.

We're on a good upward trajectory, and hopefully, as you're looking at the facilities that you're selling, hopefully you're looking at some of the ones that are pre-existing because roofs are important, but so is the environment that you go to school in.

Right, so I I just appreciate the work that you're doing.

I'm glad the bond did pass, which I was very really confident that it would anyway.

Which we're all I think all of us here were supportive.

So thank you again to all of you for the work that you do every day to take care of our kids.

Thank you for that, absolutely.

And anything we can do to support bike lane because our students are the ones using those, so I don't know how that works with you know the city's responsibility and our bond dollars, but we may be able to figure out what we can do to collaborate.

Well, the wonder East Central is really robust.

Okay, so I don't think you need to do anything.

So that's working well, okay.

Okay, great.

Bring it to the table when we have that.

We have to defend, we have to defend the decision, Chuck.

Okay, I got you.

We gotta get a lot of money.

It's easy to do.

It's easy to support and defend when it's near a school.

That's right.

A lot easier than you know, some of these corridors where you see them where there's not, you know, a lot of bikes.

People are like, why did we put a bike lane?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, this one's a lot easier because I do see the use of it.

Thank you all so much for the lighting.

Thank you.

Um, thank you for letting me sit on one of your committees in my professional capacity.

I really have learned that we've got to do that.

We're not done.

It's all long-range pointing.

I'm grateful, but I know from those meetings, I know from everything else I've heard today and previously that decreasing absenteeism, increasing attendance.

Those are, those are lifelong efforts.

And you've spent millions of dollars and probably millions of hours trying to cause those to go in the right direction.

Um I applaud you for making those massive goals of yours because the kids need to be in school where they can take advantage of all the instruction that we heard about today as well.

So uh congratulations, but I know you still want to get those numbers to goals that are far different than what they are today.

That's right.

Thank you.

I have a great team around me who put up with this every single day.

We must achieve, and so thank you.

Stick with it.

You don't have a goal, you're not gonna achieve it.

That's right.

Okay, thank you all.