Reflecting Our Values
May 21st, 2010
OKLAHOMA CITY – Hello again, everyone! As the Legislature enters its final week, a budget deal finally emerged that was able to garner the bipartisan support necessary for passage.
It is about as good a deal as we could have imagined. When the recession slowed Oklahoma’s economy, that slowdown had a chilling effect on the tax dollars flowing into the state treasury.
We in the Legislature began this year with $1.2 billion less to provide services Oklahomans expect and need. We balanced the budget using targeted agency cuts, reserve and stimulus funds, and other savings across state government. Most important for the people of Senate District 6, the budget will protect services vital for our future.
A budget is a moral document that should reflect the values we share. The most critical value we share is that we cherish our children’s future. Public education is the means by which we ensure every child has a chance to become everything God intends for them to be.
Education takes one of the smallest cuts in the budget, 2.9 percent. That number is far less than our schools were told to expect earlier this session. The funding level should help avoid teacher layoffs and other cuts we directly would see in classrooms.
If children build foundations in public schools, they learn to reach for the stars in colleges and universities. Higher education, also a critical component of our economic development efforts, received only 3.3 percent cut, protecting both educational and economic opportunity.
The Department of Public Safety endured only a 1 percent cut, hopefully keeping Troopers on the roads and our families safer. The Corrections Department, the prison system where we keep those who have and would continue to harm our families, took only a 3 percent cut. We provided additional, long-term funding to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for road and bridge maintenance and repair efforts.
Despite receiving a small decrease in state funding, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority gets a boost in overall funding from other sources. The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services will be cut by half a percent and the Department of Veterans Affairs by only 3.5 percent.
Two funding components critical to the future of rural Oklahoma, including our area, were included: a $5 million line-item appropriation to senior nutrition programs and $12.4 million to the Rural Economic Action Plan or REAP. Those were part of an agreement I helped craft early in the session.
While I have concerns about what the moratorium on tax credits – used to bridge the funding gap – might do to our economic development efforts, and there are always components of a budget that are not perfect, this is good deal. It leaves us with much work in the years ahead; but for now, we have a budget that reflects our values and which will move Oklahoma forward.
Thanks for reading this week’s “Senate Minute.” Have a great week, and may God bless you all.