Tulsa City Council Decides Whether To Waive TPD Fee For PGA Championship

The Tulsa city council voted to waive $100,000 in security fees for the PGA Championship on Wednesday night.

Tulsa Police estimated the cost of running security for the PGA at Southern Hills at $110,000, but the final cost actually ended up more than double that, at $225,000.

The PGA requested $100,000 of that be waived, which councilor Phil Lakin said at a morning meeting is hardly a unique request.

"The council has completely waived fees for the following; so we waived 78,000 dollars over the last five years total for July 4th, the MLK parade waived 73,000 dollars in fees and Veterans Day parade in the amount of 56,000 dollars," he said.

Council Chair Lori Decter Wright said that's a big problem for the city.

"The lack of accuracy in the quote is putting counselors in the position to make a very difficult decision," she said.

It highlights a larger issue with TPD estimates.

Councilor Kara Joy McKee said a number of other events have seen huge changes in costs from year to year. "It fluctuates to the point where they can’t even plan from year to year what they’re going to be expected to cover when it comes to security costs. That is a big problem.”

The council made it clear that TPD isn't entirely to blame.

They said with multiple events going on, TPD was not only stretched thin, but Chief Wendell Franklin had to bring in extra off-duty officers and pay overtime.

Still, the council said there's a pattern here.

"I think he was making a careful decision and I don’t want to second-guess him on this," Councilor McKee said. "But I do want us to keep working with the working group and really plan on how we can do better estimates.”

Counselors said the planning staff at the department are themselves stretched thin.

They said they're working on ways, potentially even bringing in more planning staff, to make security estimates more effective.