Municipal court seeks to transition ARPA/CRF-funded positions after reporting higher appearance rates and license reinstatements

Tulsa municipal court officials described program results and a funding request during a council budget discussion in May, asking the council to help transition federally funded positions into the FY26 operating plan.

Court Administrator Sherry Harville told council members the court now has 13 grant-funded positions, of which three are included in the mayor’s FY26 proposal; 10 remain funded by grants. Harville said the court expects about $120,000 in remaining ARPA funds to be spent by June 30 and about $1.8 million in CRF (COVID relief funds) that “could [cover personnel] as long as 6/30/27 if we don’t spend it on anything but personnel cost.”

Harville outlined program outcomes she said the court’s grant-funded work produced. From January 2024 through December 2024 the court’s special services docket had 460 graduates, $104,000 in fines and fees waived and — the court estimated — $1.3 million in avoided city jail costs. Harville said the embedded case manager for the special services docket costs about $79,000 a year; she estimated the total annual cost of the full program at “about $250,000.”

The court’s embedded court advocate program, started in July 2023, logged 978 participants through November 2024 and 728 housing referrals, Harville said. Service Oklahoma’s presence in the courthouse, Harville said, recorded 6,164 visitors from August 2024 through April 2025; 4,524 received information about license reinstatement and 1,640 actually reinstated a driver’s license while Service Oklahoma was available on site.

Harville also presented night court and transportation-assistance metrics: night court (Thursdays, 4–7 p.m.) logged 1,332 appearances and 3,841 cases heard through December 2024, with a 70% appearance rate versus a historical 63% rate; the transportation assistance program (started Sept. 2022) reported 1,351 participants and 2,689 bus passes distributed through December 2024, and Harville said defendants who received a bus pass showed an 82% appearance rate compared with a 63% baseline.

Financial counseling (the Financial Empowerment Center partnership) began in September 2023; Harville said the court had referred 379 people through December 2024, 53 of whom completed the program and resulted in about $26,000 in fines and fees being suspended. Harville said the counseling program is individualized and can take months to a year to complete.

Why it matters: court officials told the council that these programs—part diversion, part social-service linkage—reduce jail use, improve court appearance rates and restore legal access to driving for people whose license status impedes work and family support. Harville said if the city does not fold positions into the operating plan, the programs will face funding cliffs when grant money ends.

Council questions and staff direction: council members pressed for clearer, comparable cost-benefit information. Councilor(s) asked Harville to provide a ranked list showing each program’s annual cost, the metrics used to judge effectiveness and suggested priorities for which programs should be preserved if funding must be reduced. Harville agreed to provide that rank-ordered cost/benefit information in a later presentation.

Funding mechanics and timing: Harville said ARPA-funded programs will be fully expended and the ARPA grant will expire on Sept. 30, 2026 unless the council includes continuation funding in the FY27 financial plan; she said the CRF money does not have an official federal expiration and the city’s finance or grants department would determine any local expiration or restriction. Councilors repeatedly asked for the FY27 plan to reflect staff recommendations for transitioning positions to the general fund in stages rather than a single-year conversion.

What was not decided: council members did not take any formal vote during the discussion. No legislative action or binding commitment to specific FY26 line items was recorded in the meeting transcript; the court and council agreed to follow up with additional cost breakdowns and program ranking information.

Ending note: court officials framed the request as an effort to preserve programs they say reduce downstream criminal-justice costs; council members asked for more precise, comparable numbers before deciding which positions to fund in the operating budget.