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A city financial official for the second straight week on Thursday defended the elimination of 15 vacant 911 positions in next year’s budget.

Finance Director Mike Kier said the funding for public safety reflects cuts that all departments are experiencing for fiscal 2017 to fill a widening budget hole. Officials estimate the city will fall about $8.5 million or more behind budget estimates by June 30, the end of this fiscal year.

The issue has been in front of the City Council for two weeks in a row as Councilor Karen Gilbert has questioned the motives of cutting the 911 positions from the budget after voters approved Vision Tulsa’s public safety tax, which will add personnel.

“We have 15 positions that are being eliminated, but within the new public-safety tax … we’re going to be funding 16 additional dispatchers,” Gilbert said. “So the way that we presented this to the public when we were going out and doing town hall meetings on Vision. … We presented it to the public that those departments included in Vision, the funding would stay to where it had been previously.”

Vision Tulsa’s public safety tax is a permanent, dedicated tax that took up almost a third of Vision 2025’s expiring 0.6 percent sales tax. Voters approved the tax April 5.