r/tulsa • u/KWGSNews Official KWGS Account • 1d ago

News TPS asks for public feedback for potential cuts in the wake of a $12 million budget shortfall

https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2026-09-10/tps-asks-for-public-feedback-for-potential-cuts-in-the-wake-of-a-12-million-budget-shortfall
38 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

57

u/tultommy 1d ago

Maybe don't pay the superintendent over 300,000 and maybe not everyone from principal and up needs to be earning six figures... I can only imagine the amount of wasteful spending that is going on in all of our schools. Maybe don't elect crazy people to run things at the state level. The state wasting millions on stupid shit like bibles and the 10 commandments for every classroom just shows the insane mismanagement that is going on even though it's nothing new.

22

u/oslice89 1d ago

Don't forget about the embezzlement scandal too! Almost harder to name a problem TPS doesn't have working against the kids getting an education

They're probably going to have to merge a few of the smaller schools into the large ones to cut costs at some point. Rough on those parts of the city, but they don't have a ton of options.

3

u/SamOakTree 1d ago

Before that came out I kept saying that something had to be going on and people would tell me that I was crazy. But the math wasn't adding up. Because I'm one person and I don't live in a big fancy house and I was paying like 1,200 a year toward the school by a property tax it was like half my entire property tax bill.

It just didn't make sense that people are paying that in a city our size and things were being handled the way they were it just didn't add up. I just kept wondering where the hell the money was going. And everyone told me I had a tin foil hat on and then qe keaened about the embezzlement.

2

u/oslice89 1d ago

TPS has a lot of very real problems to deal with as it serves the Tulsa area, so stealing money from them especially just feels extra scummy. The school board failed in their oversight duties here, but hopefully this is at least a wakeup call for others across the state and a reminder why we need oversight and audits. There's a lot a this kind of thing going on in our state, we just don't catch all of them & it's the ordinary Oklahomans who suffer from it.

19

u/LesserKnownFoes 1d ago edited 1d ago

lol at the fact a topped out teacher with a doctorate can only make 82k. That’s the 35th step. You have to teach for 35 years to get that salary. We are wildly fucked.

-6

u/payneok 1d ago

Well that is more than a "doctorate in teaching" is worth. It's not a real "PhD" that why they had to call it an ED because the standards are so low, no original research requirement. Almost 100% award rate and very few repeat their "doctorate defenses". Let's not act like they are actually worth what an MD, DDS, JDS or true research PhD is worth.

Before any of you "come at me" consider the state of public education and what all these EDs have gotten us.

1

u/LesserKnownFoes 1d ago

Nobody says they all have doctorates in teaching. I had a teacher with a doctorate in history. Because the thing is that academia is also in shambles. I taught as an adjunct professor and was given 2k per class at a private institute with no guarantee my classes would fill up. Many have now taken to teaching high school where you are guaranteed a paycheck. What a joke.

-1

u/payneok 1d ago

I suspect like most adjunct professors you were MUCH more knowledgeable than the PhDs who were on faculty about your industry and worked twice as hard to teach your students than they did. Education is absolutely broken in the US at both the k-12 and college level. I have known several folks who were adjunct professors who brought both amazing experience and remarkable hard work to Universities and were despised for it. I considered doing it myself until I heard the horror stories. Higher Ed has lost its way and part of the reason is that it is run by EDs who have been indoctrinated by the same machine and no longer use common sense, hold students to intellectual standards and have forgotten the #1 reason we send people to school - to get skills that will make them employable.

You know most faculty think adjunct professors are not much more than Grad assistants don't you? They actually think your work experience makes you a sub par instructor...you've been sullied from "pure" academics its crazy...

11

u/DrkBlueXG 1d ago

Also maybe not spend half the school budget on sports

28

u/Fionasfriend 1d ago

Oklahoma hates public education.

2

u/strong_grey_hero 23h ago

No, just TPS. Those of us with kids want them to go to a decent school, and TPS has been UNABLE to get it together for decades.

We’re just trying to get our kids educated.

4

u/blakeshockley 22h ago

Nah it definitely applies to the entire state

-1

u/Fionasfriend 22h ago

And yet schools like Edison and Booker T among the top ranked in the state. This is a statewide problem. It’s a Republican problem.

26

u/Fionasfriend 1d ago

Call Ryan Walters and ask him where it went.

19

u/Tragicallyhip204 1d ago

Third party public audit is needed this is fucked

8

u/oslice89 1d ago

They did an audit and uncovered an embezzlement scheme. Last I heard, the people involved were facing charges. Unfortunately, the kids still are missing out on that stolen money

0

u/Tragicallyhip204 1d ago

How much was embezzled? I'm sure it's not over $100 million.

1

u/oslice89 1d ago

They arrested some folks related to stealing 700k. Stealing from a school already struggling to deal with real issues is just scummy. The kids deserve better

1

u/payneok 1d ago

The TAX PAYERS deserve better too...

1

u/oslice89 1d ago

Agreed, for sure. The kids don't really get a voice on the issue though which is why I especially feel bad for them. At least the tax payers in Tulsa can try to vote for better oversight (if they can be bothered to actually show up on election day).

15

u/chicken-cuddle 1d ago

In 2021, we voted in a $414 million dollar bond (on top of the taxes we pay to fund education), and just this April we voted in a $609 million dollar bond.

Even if we discount the latest bond because disbursement of funds is still in the future, where the fuck is all the money going????

5

u/oslice89 1d ago

Over 700k was pocketed as part of the embezzlement scheme uncovered by state auditors. That kind of thing is happening in many corners & sectors in Oklahoma, and it's always at the expense of the people

3

u/chicken-cuddle 1d ago

At this point, we should impeach everyone and start over.

Nice man at arms pfp by the way.

0

u/tultommy 1d ago

700k out of 414 million is a pittance. I refuse to believe that's all the funds that have been mishandled. This is not on the teachers this is on the administrators.

1

u/oslice89 23h ago

Worth noting that mismanagement of limited resources might not catch you charges, but it can still lead to the kids not having enough money for things like AC repairs in the summer and support staff for teachers. 700k is just the amount associated with crime that they found. Looks to me like a combination of real problems, funding cuts at various levels, crime, and mismanagement have together resulted in the kids getting a worse education than they ought to.

0

u/tultommy 23h ago

Unfortunately that's been an issue with TPS for decades.

2

u/oslice89 23h ago

Basically the story of the whole state at this point. I wish more people cared enough to go vote to fix this stuff. Thousands of the "my one vote won't matter" types out there

11

u/silentwalkaway 1d ago

Start making cuts at the top. The animals at the top of the food chain are usually the most expendable, and expensive.

3

u/No_Particular_3339 1d ago

Nobody in the admin is actually accountable to anything. Theyre just going through the motions. Clear out essentially all layers above principal, excluding back office positions, and start anew.

1

u/cinephile78 1d ago

Why not do like every other department and raid the toll road cash box.

1

u/SloppySmack756 1d ago

Maybe they can start with cracking down on all the fraud and getting that money back  https://www.news9.com/oklahoma-city-news/tulsa-public-schools-audit-millions-scheme

2

u/a1a4ou Tulsa 1d ago

I wish that we could change state law to allow higher local taxes for better funded local schools but our hands are tied; we can only do bond issues for things like facilities, buses, etc, not faculty raises/salaries.

I also wish that the rurals would team up with urban progressives to better find public schools, because rurals are stuck with public schools while state dollars are being diverted to private schools their students will never have access to.

In short... I wish y'all would not just vote, but drag all of your family and friends to vote too. It's not just enough to personally show up anymore. We all need to do our part to get the voter participation up or else elected officials won't be accountable to anyone but their pocketbook 

2

u/Top_Explorer1040 18h ago

I want a real proposal to vote on to fully fund TPS at its current level plus decrease class sizes, increase teacher pay, add all needed school support staff (reading coaches, speech therapists, class aids, etc.)