The Government Mule Episode 2 - Behind the Numbers: How the County Budget Comes Together

Get an inside look at how the 𝐓𝐮𝐥𝐬𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭 is built, managed, and finalized. In this episode of 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐞, we sit down with:

• 𝙈𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙚𝙡 𝙒𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙨, 𝙏𝙪𝙡𝙨𝙖 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝘾𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙠
• 𝙈𝙞𝙮𝙪𝙠𝙞 𝘿𝙬𝙮𝙚𝙧, 𝘽𝙪𝙙𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝘿𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝘿𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧
• 𝘼𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙣 𝙒𝙞𝙚𝙙𝙢𝙖𝙣, 𝙎𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙧 𝘽𝙪𝙙𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝘼𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙮𝙨𝙩

Together, they break down the county budget process from early planning and financial analysis to final approvals and implementation. Whether you are a resident curious about how public funds are allocated or someone interested in local government operations, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲’𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to the Government Mule Podcast, a production of the Tulsa County Clerk's Office in Oklahoma. Okay, here we are, episode number two of the Government Mule Podcast. And today I am joined with a couple of wonderful uh government mules from the Tulsa County Clerk's Office on my staff. Um so without getting into a whole lot of detail of our org structure in the county clerk's office, we house the budget division for within the county clerk's office, but serves the entire county government. So today we have our budget director, Mukey Dwyer, who we're gonna talk to about some budget stuff and lots of fun things. And we also have Aaron Weedman, our senior budget analyst, um, and you know, one of my favorite examples of a government mule, uh, because this guy's a super hard worker. And um, anyway, we're gonna talk about some cool stuff. If you ever wanted to know about the county's budget, spend the next 20 or 30 minutes listening to this uh episode because we're gonna give a good snapshot of things like where our revenue comes from, um, what our process looks like in terms of putting actual a budget and the document and all the working parts together, um, different styles and types of funds that we have at the county. Um, and then in general, just talking a little bit about the budget board, and then at the end we'll talk a little bit about how both Mukey and Aaron came to be in the county clerk's office working in the budget division. So I'll just start out by saying that um I took office back in 2017, and when I took office in 2017, the county had a separate, kind of a separate fiscal office that was made up of six people, and it worked for all eight members of the budget board. And if you're not familiar with our budget board, the budget board consists of the three county commissioners, county clerk, county court clerk, assessor, treasurer, and sheriff. So eight people make up that county budget board. So we had a separate finance or fiscal office working for them probably a year and a half after I was uh after I started as county clerk, we ended up making a bit of a um tactical change in how that worked. And I was assigned um the duty of being or overseeing the what we now call the budget division. So we had six people, now we have four people, um, and you four are some of the hardest working people we have in county government. But Mukey is the only person um in our current budget division that also served in the county's fiscal office back when, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:50

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

So um anyway, that's kind of how we got to where we are in terms of uh staffing the budget for the county. But um I'll start out just um by asking or talking to Mukey a little bit about the overview of the budget, and then Aaron will chime in. So let's talk at first about where do our revenues for the county budget come from and and how much um in total do we look at budgeting uh let's say for this year?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Right. Okay, so uh well budget, well, all that revenue comes from, you know, it's not only for the general fund, but also all the other funds, the county at large. So a double room taxes, which is also known as a property taxes. Um county as a whole, we collect like use tax, sales tax, and also like engineering department road and bridges for like a fuel, fuel like excise taxes, gasoline excise tax, um, special like fuel taxes, diesel tax, diesel tax, stuff like that, and then like even the golf fees can be part of the uh entire uh revenue source for to you know fund the county as a whole. And also for you know, sheriff's office, we have uh uh ICE revenue or uh sheriff's cash fund.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

More specialized, different different funds have uh different revenue sources that may be specific to those individuals.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Right. Yeah. So we spend a lot of time as a budget board dealing with the county's general fund budget because the budget board oversees that. Maybe gives a snapshot of uh what we're working on. So as background, we started this week. Um really the public part of our budget process started this week. We had budget hearings on Monday and Tuesday.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

That was um what April the 6th and the 7th. And during those budget hearings, we hear from any office or um whether it's an elected office or whether it's one of the Board of County Commissioners uh divisions that are requesting budget money for the next fiscal year, but we also hear from other partner agencies like uh Chambers of Commerce, NCOG, River Parks, some of those folks that come in and request money from us as well. But in terms of that process, we're generally this year dealing with what we think will be about a hundred and eight million dollar general fund budget, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

That is correct. Yes. So um so general funds get funded by like a 79 to 81 percent from other volume taxes, also known as a property tax, and like investment income, that's a second running up. We collect about 11 million, we have collected about 11 million dollars last year. This year we expected to collect like 7.5, next year 4.5. Um we also collect other taxes like uh uh motor vehicle tax, documentary stamps, um stuff like that, and then there's other miscellaneous income as well. So uh those are major revenue sources. And in order to balance our budget, we use fund balance, which is the money we have. It's almost like a not a saving, but the money we have the fund is left uh to be able to balance the budget by using so to meet 108 million dollar budget to start out. But as you know, we give it the target budget um about January, uh close to February, and they come back, majority of elected offices, other department or other agencies come to ask additional funding. So that's about 11 million dollars right now. So uh budget board will decide on we have a several more meeting before finalizing the budget. So, you know, budget board has a lot of work to do too.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

We do have a lot of work to do. So we decide. Um Muki touched on a very important part. So we we generally start um, I mean, I would say we have a budgeting practice that's kind of like a zero-based budgeting um style where the different departments put their requests together based on the service level that they believe the elected officials are looking for. And then beyond that, if there's something extra, they have to ask for that specifically in the budget. So when Mukey talks about the target budget, we we give a department a target budget based on what their service levels and employment levels and everything were in the previous fiscal year. And then if they want to do anything extra, need anything extra, they have to ask for that as a target overrun.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

This year, we have about eleven million dollars in overrun asks, and we have about, we think, around ten million dollars actually available to fulfill those.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

And that sounds like it could be simple because we just would have to work to cut a million dollars out of that. Right. Um but it's not that simple because we like to be able to invest in our employees every year. Um it's one of my top priorities on the budget board. So if we, for example, look at giving a three or four percent increase to our employees, well that's several million dollars there.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yes, that's cost about two million dollars.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Just for the general fund.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Right. So that takes a couple million dollars out of what we're able to afford to grant in possible overrun requests.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

So um, you know, one thing people don't really understand, I think, very well is that the property taxes don't ever grow a whole lot in a year.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Um we never really have revenue increases in one year that exceed probably more than five percent almost ever. Right. And on on the high side. Yeah. On the high side, yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah, last six, seven years statistically, because we have to our job is to of course oversee the budget, but also we have to analyze, make sure, you know, when we decide to target budget, make sure we can collect as much as we think we project to collect. So those are something that we really focus on. And we typically uh looking back last seven, six, seven years, our volume tax has gone up about 4.95% year after year. So that would bring it in between maybe three, between three to four million dollars every year, uh year after year. So, which is not great. I mean, which um we are grateful, you know. We the valuation, uh property value goes up every year, and that's how much we can collect. But uh that three to four million dollars, I don't know if we can uh serve, you know, at the level of what we want to do, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

What what the public needs. Right, exactly. So one of one of the major challenges we have in county government, a lot of people talk about our uh uh strength in our funding stream, which is largely property taxes, um, is we have stability. So we don't ever really have revenue losses or dips all that much, right? But we never have double digit revenue growth. That's so you might see a municipality like a city, um, and Aaron tracks this every month, but the sales taxes coming in um are are definitely more volatile than the property tax revenues that are coming in. A hundred percent. Yes, but sometimes sales taxes will grow in double digits for a year. Um sometimes they might be one or two percent in a year, which is a tough year for a city government. But for at the county, we're pretty steady. Right. We had steady revenue increases, but they haven't been all that much at a time.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And when you talk about somewhere between two and five percent revenue growth year over year, it creates a difficulty for our budget board to manage things like utilities.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Because utilities are sometimes volatile.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Employee health care. We've had a really big challenge, I would say, here at the county managing um our employee health care package. We want to have a great benefit, we want it to be good, right? We want it to serve our employees, but it's very expensive.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

It's one of our top budget line items that increases almost every single year.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Right. Yes. Year over year over year.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Because healthcare costs are not going down. And generally, all those things we're talking about go up more than that three, two, three, four to five percent every year. So it's a difficult thing for us to to manage. Right. Um and you know, it just creates an opportunity for our budget board and our staff to help us with some uh suggestions and recommendations on how to do some things to be leaner, um, to do you know, more with less and those sorts of things. So that's something we have to deal with every year in our budget. Right. Um, this year will be no different. This year actually will be a little more difficult, I think, than we've had in the past few years because um we we've had a lot of federal money coming in over the last few years. We have the CARES program at ARPA, um, of which Aaron was the chief really the chief budget accounting person for for uh for CARES and ARPA. We'll talk about that here in a little bit. But um But Mukey, you might just um tell us where we are in the process now on our budget.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

And then Aaron maybe can fill in some of the some of the rest about what the rest of the process looks like.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Okay. Well, let me let me tell you this because I know we start giving a target budget in February, but our budget, you know, I don't know if everybody knows, but uh our fiscal year starts July and they end in June. That's our cycle. Uh budget division start working on our budget in December. What we do is we have a financial software called Adap uh Workday. We have implemented like four or five years ago. Uh before that it was fiscal year 22. Yeah. So we use Workday, and then it does not have budget tool uh in that software. So we have to purchase different programs called adaptive planning, which is a uh workday product. So we we have to run integration to uh make sure all the data we export it into workday, make sure all the structure is in adaptive. It's kind of mapping. Uh we have to do the process in December. We just test it, make sure, because during the fiscal year, we might add new department or new program, add a new spend category, new project or grant, anything like that. We might add it in work day and we make sure that all that data, all the uh structure, like uh, or accounting strength is exported into adaptive. So we run our integration and then we export the data into adaptive, and then we validate the data and make sure everything exists in workday exists in adaptive. If it doesn't, we have a great IT department, specifically Brittany. She's wonderful. Uh she helped us out with any missing maybe work string or you know, um yeah, accounting string is missing, or we have added new uh allowance in workday, but it's not, it didn't come over in adaptive, which is rare. But there is something behind the scene that we can't see, but uh Brittany can fix it. So um yeah, we we really have a great IT person as a staff that helped us tremendously. Without her help, really, I don't know. It would take a lot longer process to for us to accomplish what we need to accomplish uh before we start giving bookkeeper target and stuff like that. So so that's what we do first. And then what's the question?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Well then we Oh, we're talking about the overall process. Yes. Then So give us a snapshot of you you talked about the very beginning part of the process.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Right. And then um we um I you we usually meet assessor right in the end of January, because they they give us kind of uh estimated valuation or increase in um uh uh valuation. So we kind of take the information.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Can you say just to interrupt you real quick? When you say valuation, you mean property valuations from across the county.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

For those who aren't familiar with the property tax process, if you will, the assessor's office is in charge of setting or uh forecasting what the value will look like of property across Tulsa County. And then you know that goes into the tax rolls ultimately, and then the treasurer collects those taxes, and then those taxes are dispersed out to the government entities that receive them, like the school system, like the VOTEC, like uh community college, library, so on and so forth. And Tulsa County is one of those recipients. So that's why we meet with the assessor's office is to get a good forecast of what revenues might look like year over year.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Exactly, correct. And and in order to set the revenue, it that's very helpful information for us to get because then we can see, okay, I can see how much uh how much goes up in value of the property and how much we uh we are able to collect. And we we need to estimate that. But also we have to follow the state statute states, we can budget so much in revenue, and then whatever we uh we don't have it, that we can, if we have a fund balance, we can utilize that to balance the budget. So we kind of go over that, and then in February, we set the target and then it's given out the target budget to elected offices and department and also outside the agency. And then um their expenditure budgets. Right. And then get we get all the everything back to us and we create the but interview books and we distribute that uh probably at the end of March, and we have a uh budget interview that that is we just uh completed a couple days ago. That's like they come out and you know, uh they pretty much explain what how they utilize the money they they get from the taxpayer, basically. And if they need additional funding, why they're needing that, what they're gonna be spending the money for. Uh so you know they can make cases to try to get grant that additional funding they need to operate. And then the budget board meets several several times before that, and then we have a public um uh what's that called public hearing. Public hearing. We have to have it by June the 15th. So we have this year we have a meeting June the 8th on Monday. Um so that time the budget board will voted to whether they're gonna approve the entire general fund budget. And we have to take it to the exercise board to their blessing on the budget. Then after that, we have to send it in to the uh uh state auditor's office. And but budget has to be approved seven days before the very first day of fiscal year. So June 20 by June 23rd, we have to have uh adapted budget. So that's kind of the entire process.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

And so you've made a really good point. You know, we there are lots of laws that govern the transparency that we have we have uh for the process. Um all of our meetings where we're talking about the budget are generally open meetings, yes, um, including the budget hearings that we just did uh last Monday and Tuesday, and then we'll have several budget board meetings, both regular meetings and special meetings if we need them to discuss and make adjustments or um deliberate, if you will, about the budget.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Sure. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

And then June 8th, we will actually have a public hearing um at the budget board meeting where we schedule time for anyone to come in and speak um about the county's budget or any components of it. Uh we publish the budget.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

And it is published before that meeting, I would add so that the like that is out there, anybody can see it. If they have comments to your point about at that public hearing, they can say, well, this was this was published in the you know, the Tulsa World. And what what is this? What is that? What are these numbers all mean?

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah, it has to be published five days before the public hearing.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yes. Yes. So keep an eye out on our website, yes. Um keep an eye out on the Tulsa World we publish there.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Um for any um any of the documents or anything that anyone would need to look, uh research, yes, find anything they're interested in finding, and then certainly we we would love to have the public attend our meetings.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

But they'll we'll have the public hearing on June 8th, right? Where we anticipate if everything goes well, right? Right. That day we will, with any luck, fingers crossed. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Get some blessing.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Adopt the budget and um and your your office, Mukey, and and Aaron and with Steven and Natalia, Natalia, um produce a budget document that's about that thick.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

So it's a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

It's like 178 pages or something. It's less than 200 pages. Uh less than 200 pages. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

It's way smaller than it used to be. It is way smaller. We've we've simplified it several years ago um to make it a little bit uh easier to digest.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

And um anyway, so we'll publish that document. Um, it'll be ready to go. We'll have that uploaded to our website, right? All that kind of stuff. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Um I really enjoyed uh public um no uh budget interviews this year, uh especially you know, certain because they can tell us uh what they are what they use to. money, how they utilize it, how it's helping uh public or you know, uh especially alternative courts. Like we have issue with the mental health, how they tell us the fund we provide to uh those departments, how it's helping, and what kind of needs they still have, and what kind of funding source or what kind of funding source they have and you know stuff like that. Those are I really enjoyed listening to their story. And I wish that all the public people come so that they can they can really listen to what they have to say and they can see public can hear, oh, this my my tax money or my fee I pay at the uh county clerk's office, you know, get utilized for these kind of purposes. And I think that was a great I think that's a great uh opportunity that people can't have.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah I agree. And I think so next year I believe we will try to work to stream those.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

And we're streaming the county commission meetings now. Probably we will be streaming budget board meetings before too long. And then hopefully next year we'll be able to do some live streaming um of our our budget hearings. Because you're right, Mukey there are some really interesting things that come out in that process. A couple of interesting things that I didn't really plan on talking about but you brought up one and I'll I'll bring up the other number one a lot of people probably don't recognize that we are the only county in Oklahoma that has a parks department.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

And we spend well I used to know exactly kind of what their budget numbers were but we have uh revenues that come in for the use of parks. Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

It's about four million dollars I think four million dollars in the parks fund.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

And then we also put a fair amount of general fund money I think it's about six and a half. Six and a half yeah which is typically their salaries for all of the parks employees and yeah so we're paying salaries for the parks employees they've got a lot of employees that do lots of things in the parks but um then those revenues for use of the facilities um oh yeah funds a lot of improvements going in at the parks right um different things like that but we're one of we're one of one counties in Oklahoma that has a parks department we've got some phenomenal parks in a future government mule podcast uh episode we'll probably have our parks director come talk about some of that stuff but another thing that um I think people probably don't recognize is that um while we house the courts excuse me the court system with all the judges and and the DA and the public defender and all the components of that um we don't pay for judges salaries um all that is is state right or state government funded but one thing you mentioned uh a minute ago Muke is that we had uh a budget interview with the specialty courts right division Tulsa County is maybe one of only a handful of counties that even have a specialty courts um you know uh operation I would say but we have a phenomenal program again future podcast episode um where we have uh veterans treatment court we have uh DUI and alcohol treatment court drug court mental health court um and the county puts in a fair amount of money uh every year to help support those programs and then they also are very good at going out and getting grant programs uh funding and things like that but Aaron you remember about how much we put in the budget into the four specialty courts it's in terms of the overall scope of the general fund it's not a lot.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I think mental health court is about 160 to 170,000 I think drug court is a little bit less than that. It's about 140 141 thousand something like that. But to your point they get they get a lot well I'm not gonna say a lot because they always are needing more but they do get Department of Justice grants um they get some money I think from the state um mental health for some of their programs but in terms of the overall general fund allocation um it's not a it's not a huge amount compared to some of the other departments that that we fund.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

But we are pretty unique in the sense that we do fund it absolutely and it's one of the things as a budget board member I've been really proud to support them over the years because a lot of what they do is really important to the justice system but it's also really important just to get people back on the up and up and even more as being a fiduciary of the county one other thing that we have to worry about is how many people are sitting in our jail.

unknown 26:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And so that program actually keeps a lot of people um either out of jail at the beginning or keeps them from going back into some of the um problems that they had when they got into the justice system and that saves us money on the back end from having to uh house them in our jail. So Aaron um you're kind of our jail expert and um the sheriff's office not spend any time inside the jail. But from a financial perspective you know probably our biggest ticket item that county government funds is public safety. Yes. The sheriff's office is our largest department in in uh almost every measurable thing you can look at in terms of the number of employees, the number of facilities, the number of assets percentage wise they're the largest that is the largest percentage of the general fund expenditure budget.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

And we spend a lot of money out of our general fund um on public safety but we also have a sales tax that we collect that helps um it's the lion's share of what is used to operate the jail. Right. So Aaron maybe talk a little bit about um because the jail's a big I mean it's like a it's a city over there just north of us here. And they do a lot and they have a lot going on but um maybe talk about their budget just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Sure. So uh as you mentioned the kind of the lion's share of what funds the jail is that 0.25 quarter penny sales tax which was uh enacted in 1995 I believe for the construction and maintenance and ongoing operation of David El Moss of the jail um that primarily now um and it has changed kind of obviously it's been thirty thirty one years basically um it primarily funds the uh salaries of the folks that work there so you have detention staff you have management and deputy staff you've got support staff um that's the bulk of the the jail's um revenue and then obviously their expenditures um primarily again are funded out of that sales tax for for the the um payroll and benefits but they also do generate some money uh as well so when you house certain types of folks um U.S. Marshals is a good example the federal inmates um the federal government will pay uh a certain rate of inmate per person per day so that generates some revenue to cover those expenditures that can't be covered or just there simply isn't enough sales tax revenue to cover it. So you've got things like housing ICE prisoners, housing U.S. marshals um we do have agreements with the city of Tulsa to house some of their overflow we have um some of the tribal uh inmates that we house um they do generate a little bit of sort of miscellaneous revenue as well bond release fees and ATM fees but they that the the vast majority is funded by initially that sales tax and then also by what we we call them user fees but it's essentially revenue that is generated through the operation of of the jail.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yeah and the overall spend what are we planning for next year an overall spend at the jail?

SPEAKER_00 30:20

I believe um their initial uh number which hasn't yet been approved by the CJA the the board of trustees that oversees um kind of the jail but I believe it's just right around sixty eight million dollars which is the three funds combined. We didn't talk about the commissary fund but that's another source of revenue um that that uh helps to keep the jail afloat keep it operating so between those three funds combined it's about sixty eight million I think for fiscal year twenty seven again that's sort of their preliminary number I think big it is it's it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

So we're we're talking about our our general fund budget's about 108 million dollars. That jail is over there separately and it's its own sixty eight million dollar business running over there and it's a it's a big deal and kudos to Sheriff Regalato and his team. Yes they do a great job uh managing the the jail in general um it's a it's a big undertaking it is a yes yeah so before we kind of wrap up the budget discussion I want to talk a little bit about some of the other special funds that we have at the county that most people don't really know that much about I'll give a c a couple of examples um so we we have some cash funds or they'd be called revolving funds maybe by um by a better explanation or definition but like in the county clerk's office we have two we have a records preservation or records management fund that is uh the revenue comes from folks that record documents in our office it's ten dollars per document that uh comes in we can utilize that money for exactly what it's called for preserving our records whether it's physically or digitally um then we have a lien fee account as well where we we generate money from people that come in to record liens in our office um the treasurer has a couple of them um the sheriff has a cash fund right the commissioners have several um and we talked a little bit about um some of the road funding that comes in um what others am i missing parks and parks cash funds risk management that's where we pay the workers comp and some of the uh claim for the health i mean the insurance right um special projects fund which has um a variety of things it's I would I would say it's kind of primary focus is on things like federal funding grant funding um we've got the capital improvements fund um there's a few other kinds and and really the main difference in these the reason I even want to talk about it is that these funds are different from our general fund budgeted funds that is correct so our budgeted funds every year zero out essentially at the end of the fiscal year. So at the end of on June 30 2026 we will basically zero out that general fund and whatever is left will be part of our carryover balance that we will be able to utilize to like you talked about before to balance next year's budget and to pay for bills that were due at the end of the year that didn't quite get paid for and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

These revolving funds or cash funds are ones that don't really zero out. Right um right they revolve and turn over um and they're just treated a little bit differently so they're not part of our general fund budget. That is correct but they do exist out there and they do we do utilize them to do a lot of operations in county government. For example in our office um we utilize our two cash funds basically to operate the office our general fund is really used only for the payment of salaries and benefits and very few little supplies in our office.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Everything else we we use those customer fees to operate the office so it's not a burden on the county general fund.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

The treasurer's office does a very similar kind of thing where they have a very minuscule amount of money they require from the general fund but they operate most of their office on on the on their resale property fund. Right. So anyway that's something I think is interesting for people to know.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah and is there anything else we need to talk about with regard to the budget?

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Well so like a general fund you know like you mentioned it's completely different from a cash fund. Cash fund is you spend as you collect right and then whatever is left over if you have two million dollars left at June 30th you can carry forward the entire two million dollars the next fiscal year. On the other hand general fund we do not have 108 million dollars right now. So but a general we can apportion the fund um according to the assessment of collection of revenue. So that's a big difference is a cash fund you spend as you collect a general fund we upfront you know how much you assess to collect so much.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So that's the two major differences in that okay well I want to shift gears one of the focus areas and one of the things that I wanted to do with this podcast the government mule podcast is to focus on our people because the strength of our organization at Tulsa County I think most of us who work here would agree that it's our people we have in our office I said this on the first podcast we did I'll probably say it on every one of them we have an incredible team folks that I enjoy working with. I think we all enjoy working with each other very professional. We do our jobs we also try to have as much fun as we can so I want to kind of highlight a few minutes just take a few minutes to highlight both of you and I'll start with you Mukey because we kind of joke a little bit about this and you know you all are both very humble people so you're not gonna want to really pat yourselves on the back here or whatever. I'll try to do that but um but you know Mukey and I over the last couple days in talking about the podcast have joked I'm like listen you're probably probably the only budget director in the state of Oklahoma who was born in Japan. And Mukey and I talk a lot about uh Japan from time to time because I'm fascinated with Japanese culture and Mukey has been um I'm grateful she's been willing to help educate me a little bit but tell us your story about how you got here um how I got to talk young I mean just kinda you don't have to give us your life story right well good you're you're born in Japan you grew up in Japan you moved to the states moved to the state I went to when you moved here you did not speak English right I only knew well see back home you take English for now it might have uh changed a little bit more because that was when I was in Japan that's years ago like decades.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

So um uh you know English was mandatory back home six years you take every week you have like three hours of classes you have to take reading uh reading writing not so much speaking and grammar structure that was mandatory so you do that so I knew English but I never really practiced English speaking so when I came to US um I only well I could only say like thank you I'm sorry excuse me those uh words I just just it could have come out naturally if I wanted to so okay first time I went to I land here in US and I went to the Burger King next morning that was my very first breakfast um I tried to order something and I couldn't say I was telling them I want water but they could understand that my pronunciation was so bad that they couldn't understand I'm telling them I need water. So that was very challenging but anyway so I came here I went to college and studied business and office administration and then I got a job and then I came I living in Oklahoma about 11 years now and I started working for Tosa County since 2015. So I've been with the county about almost about 11 years. I think I just had an anniversary in May so um I'm always uh entire my career I'm is in a county field and I enjoy dealing with numbers all the time and but um I really enjoy working for Tosa County and County Clerk's office. I have a great team I work with every day I have a greatest boss he's so much fun he's okay to be honest I was telling people I don't feel like I'm coming to work I don't I enjoy coming to work and I don't feel like this is a kind of place to work but it just come to see my friends and have a good time but work at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Oh yeah it's plenty of work yeah there is a challenge I all the time headache a lot of time but I still enjoy coming to work every day and we have a you know Halloween we dress up and that's one of the Yeah we try to celebrate our successes we talk about you know we're we're coming up towards the end of the fiscal year we always do a fiscal year end and fiscal year beginning kind of celebration where we talk about right and you give us ice cream and I usually buy ice cream provide us ice cream yeah love it we try to celebrate our successes and we do have a great team and you're a great leader on our team and I have we have a great team I'm so blessed.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Yeah very blessed.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Aaron let's shift to you how I mean how did you get into the county clerking business and and budgeting and I I might have a little bit to add to this but yes go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

So um when I I actually started with the county in 2013 July of 2013 I started at the election board um enjoyed that was there a little under five years um I'm a big proponent of voting and voting rights so I enjoyed very much working over there and then when you were kind enough to bring me over um did several interrupt you real quick so um we have several people in the county clerk's office that routinely work for the election board on election nights or on election days.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

And so we have a handful of folks that will come in to our office, work their full day and then after they're finished they will go over and work at the election board getting all the returns in and all the different processes that happen there. And back in 2017 Aaron you were the one essentially running the game day I would say game day operation at the election board um on during elections and so a lot of our staff was familiar with you.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Aaron Ross Powell I knew I I like to kind of joke that I knew people in every single department and only and I only worked in one but that is how I knew what is essentially now the entire seventh floor was because I did. I would recruit them I ran the election services division and um at the time it may have changed now but we could not run elections without the team that we have at the county and I mean that from the county clerk's office, the treasurer's office the assessor's office everybody that came over and helped us out uh at the election board back then that that was in order to just run an election we could not literally couldn't do it without them.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah so we got the opportunity to hire Aaron it was in 2017 I started in January I think probably by fall time I think it was yes I believe you brought me over in September I think August or September of 17th. Yeah so um you know I like to Aaron's a really great example of of just a great worker in our office and for the county but you know I like to say that so Aaron started in our office as um really kind of an assistant project manager over in our recording and land area where people come in to record their deeds and liens and mortgages and all that kind of stuff and um it's funny about I don't know a while after that we had a woman in the budget office who was looking to retire and we actually attempted to replace her with someone else and that attempt kind of failed. I mean it just the person we hired wasn't a great fit we recognized it they recognized it we we had a happy parting of ways and and the woman who we were trying to replace Diane she was ready to retire right and I talked to her I'm like hey I'm like you know what do we need to do here can we can can we find a way to keep you can we you know what what do you think we should do? And she said Michael you should hire Aaron and I'm like Aaron Weedman she said yeah I said but like he has a bunch of experience working in the election board and and he's been great for us in our real estate services division but do you know I mean does he have much budgeting and accounting type experience and she's like well I don't know but he's a great worker and I know that we can teach him and sure enough what happened is we brought Aaron over and I mean I just you know Aaron and I have some fun conversations about nerdy stuff we're both interested in. Like we are serious nerds. Yeah, big time nerds. But Aaron is a monster when it comes to work. I mean, I joke that he eats work for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

He sure is.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

And so it really didn't take very long for you to um to kind of ramp up to be able to do the budget stuff. And he's just been a rock star ever since. So I I filled in I filled in part of that uh question that I asked you.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

No, it it's I had previously been in operations management, but to be, you know, yes, you know, I have a fantastic boss in Miuki that has been in accounting. Dealing with the budget and dealing with accounting is essentially operations management just in kind of a different form or different context. So and it is like you we didn't touch on it much, but we mentioned like ARPA and CARES and things like that. One of the joys of this position in the budget team is that we do get to help everybody out there. We get to keep businesses afloat, we get to help nonprofits, we keep people in their houses, we keep them fed. Um so that for me is an extremely rewarding part of what you have been able to allow me to do in this role.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yes. Um, you know, we we haven't covered ARPA and CARES, uh, but we will have probably multiple podcasts about that, so you'll be back probably doing uh a discussion about that um in the future. But uh yeah, uh you know, I I joke a lot and you know, and and I always joke about being you know the chief nerd of Tulsa County. Um you know, Mukey and Aaron and the rest of their teams are are right there uh by my side on on that front because we're dealing in numbers and we're dealing with things that the average person, the average taxpayer, the average member of the public does not really understand what it is we do. But like Aaron said, so much of what we do on the back end side of our office with finance and accounting and budgeting and payroll is to keep the county running. Yes. Um and so you know Aaron and Mukey spend a bunch of their time keeping the county running because essentially your department, uh your division is the air traffic controllers for um for the county funds that that we're dealing with and executing the budget every year. So um we're gonna wrap up. We've gone a little longer than I thought we might. Um forty-seven minutes.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Wow, Aaron, you talk too much.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Time flies. Time flies. We have it. This has been a great one. Episode number two of the Government Mule Podcast. Um joined today by Mukey Dwyer and Aaron Weedman from the Tulsa County Clerk's Office of Budget Division. Thank you all for your time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Thank you for inviting us. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

We'll probably be back and do another one of these.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Okay. All right. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Goodbye, everybody. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Thank you. Bye