Oklahoma lawmakers ask Gov. Henry for new budget proposal
BYLINE: Janice Francis-Smith
Gov. Brad Henry's executive budget is not going to cut it, Republican leaders of the Oklahoma Legislature said Thursday. And it won't be sufficient for the governor to highlight general areas of concern with the budget proposal he recently vetoed.
Instead, lawmakers want the governor to produce an entirely new budget proposal, and announce that plan publicly. Only then will legislative leaders sit down with the governor to see how his plan aligns with their budget proposal.
When Henry chose to line-item veto nearly all of House Bill 1234, the $7 billion budget bill lawmakers approved and sent to his desk, Henry made note of the areas he thought the bill failed to address: prisons and education. Henry said there were many funding items in HB 1234 he agreed with, and he was confident he and the legislative leaders could craft a good budget bill by working together.
"If I had approved this as the blueprint for the final budget, our prison system would be in danger of coming under federal control and public safety would be jeopardized," Henry said. "Students at our colleges and universities would be facing double-digit tuition hikes, and teachers would once again be left wondering whether their pay would ever reach the regional average as promised or whether they would have a pension when they retired. "
HB 1234 did not include any money to address the multibillion-dollar under-funded liability shouldered by the state Teachers' Retirement System. Henry's executive budget had included $25 million for the Teachers' Retirement System, which is ranked as the worst-funded retirement system in the country with a 49.5-percent-funded ratio.
The Department of Corrections had requested $47 million to help them get through the current fiscal year. HB 1234 would have provided just $9.6 million in supplemental funds for Corrections, which officials say would cover just one month's expenses.
HB 1234 set aside $1 million for an in-depth study of the Department of Corrections to be conducted by an unnamed, independent firm to determine just how much money the department should need for the year. If the study could be conducted in time, legislative leaders said more money could be provided for corrections out of about $60 million left unspent by the lawmakers' budget agreement. For the new fiscal year beginning July 1, HB 1234 provided $477 million for Corrections, an increase of 4.7 percent over the department's appropriation for last year.
Henry began his line-item veto by deleting the $1 million provision for the Corrections study, which he said duplicated duties already assigned to the Legislature and to the state auditor and inspector.
HB 1234 had provided more than $1 billion for higher education, of which $5.5 million was directed for institutional budgets.
The budget agreement reached by legislative leaders, of which HB 1234 is a part, also included a few proposals to cut taxes. Proposals to accelerate implementation of the record-level tax cut the Legislature approved last year, to create a sales tax holiday for back-to-school purchases, to free more businesses from franchise taxes and to provide a child care tax credit to stay-at-home parents would have a $15.3 million impact on the fiscal year that begins July 1, and a $74.3 million impact on the next fiscal year's revenue collections.
House Speaker Lance Cargill asked which services or agency budget Henry would cut in order to balance the budget. But Cargill said he would oppose any attempt Henry might make to curb the size of the new tax cuts proposed this year.
"Taking agreed-to tax cuts off the table, in my book, is a tax increase," said Cargill.
Both Cargill and Senate Co-President Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee called on the governor on Thursday to identify his problems with HB 1234 and present a new budget proposal before talks can begin.
Henry has already produced a budget proposal, at the time he made his State of the State Address in February. But Cargill called the governor's executive budget "a work of fiction" and demanded the governor produce a new budget proposal.
Henry had balanced his executive budget proposal by relying on growth revenues, excess funds carried over from last year's budget and about $275 million in bond issues. And that was before the state Equalization Board certified the available funds for the year and determined that the state has $255 million less to spend than was anticipated.
The governor's spokesman, Paul Sund, said Thursday that Henry is sending out written invitations to Cargill, Coffee, Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Morgan, D-Stillwater and the leader of the Democrat minority in the House, Rep. Danny Morgan, D-Prague. But Sund said the governor doesn't intend to send them yet another budget proposal.
"Governor Henry laid out his budget priorities in January and February," said Sund. "Legislative leaders laid out their priorities in the general appropriations bill. Now that everyone has laid their cards on the table, it is time for the leaders of all the legislative caucuses and the executive branch to begin holding meetings and negotiating a final budget.
"You can't negotiate a budget through press releases," said Sund. "You have to get all the leaders in a room to work through the details and find common ground. The sooner that process gets started, the better for Oklahoma taxpayers. "