Tulsa HR reports hiring gains but flags hard-to-fill city jobs as budget talks continue

City of Tulsa personnel officials told the budget and special projects committee Wednesday that the city gained a net 62 non‑sworn employees over the past 12 months but still runs roughly 80 to 200 vacancies and faces difficulty filling technical and professional roles.

Erica Felix Warwick, personnel director for the City of Tulsa, said the figure reflects bodies actively working in city jobs rather than authorized positions. “Over that 12 month period we have had a net gain of 62, employees over that period of time,” Warwick said, noting April represented the 12‑month high point.

Warwick told councilors the city recorded 420 externally recruited non‑sworn hires during the year and averages 16 to 20 new hires at each biweekly orientation. She described a shift in recruiting strategy away from large career expos toward smaller, job‑specific events held at city locations, and said those events include on‑site application intake and interviews: “When we do these city sponsored, specific small, on‑site events, we do. We'll ask supervisors from the area to be on‑site. We have our recruiters on‑site. We have computers there. They fill out the application. They're immediately interviewed…”

Despite the gains, Warwick said the city’s total authorized positions — including sworn employees — number roughly 3,700 and that the city typically carries about 80 to 200 vacancies at any given time. The personnel director differentiated sworn staff (police and firefighters) from non‑sworn employees and said the non‑sworn citywide turnover rate for the 12‑month period was 11 percent. Retirement events totaled 59 in the same period.

Councilors pressed HR on which roles are hardest to fill and on how many open positions are grant funded or must be moved to the general fund. Warwick and HR staff identified accounting and professional finance positions, engineers, and certain field operators as elevated recruitment challenges, and said skilled heavy‑equipment roles such as streets and stormwater operators and water/wastewater operators require CDL certification and are most often filled by internal progression and training.

“There are types of jobs that have a specific skill set that we may have to look regionally or even nationally,” Warwick said. She added the water and sewer department — which normally advertises 50–60 actively recruited positions at a time — at the moment had only 37 positions actively in recruitment, a sign she described as noteworthy.

Councilors also asked about pay competitiveness and recruitment strategies. Councilor Bush asked whether the city’s pay scale affects the ability to hire specialized staff such as engineers; Warwick replied that salary ranges are broad and that the city negotiates within budget and departmental constraints. For lower‑level bargaining‑unit positions, Warwick said union rules and concerns about pay compression constrain how aggressively the city can adjust starting pay.

On referral incentives, Warwick said non‑sworn employees do not currently receive referral bonuses. She noted that the police department had previously offered a $5,000 incentive for a particular academy class in an earlier budget year.

Councilors sought additional data about vacancies that are grant funded, unfilled, or likely to require long‑term general fund support. Sarah (last name not specified), an HR staff member, said the city maintains tables of grant‑funded positions and that, at the time the list was reviewed, most grant positions were filled. Councilors asked HR to produce a clearer breakdown of which unfilled positions are grant funded and which would become an ongoing general fund obligation if filled.

Warwick and staff said they can run reports showing how many employees in each department are eligible to retire and provide further breakdowns of the demographics of new hires on request. Several councilors said that information will be necessary as the council considers budget reductions and the general fund forecast in the coming weeks.

No formal motions or votes were recorded on staffing policy during the committee’s hour of discussion. Committee members directed staff to provide follow‑up materials, including: a list of grant‑funded positions, the number of currently unfilled grant‑funded roles, and, if possible, the hometown or regional breakdown of recent hires.

The committee’s follow‑up requests aim to clarify the budgetary implications of hiring decisions and to help prioritize positions as the fiscal year and budget process advance.