Jay Chilton
MiddleGround News for The McCarville Report
In a year dominated by the threat of a $611 million budget shortfall, elected leaders in Oklahoma produced a budget agreement Tuesday, May 19 raising state appropriations by nearly $20 million.
Fiscal year 2015 appropriations totaled $7.121 billion, according to the FY 15 Appropriated State Budget Agreement Summary released May 16 of last year. The FY 16 Appropriated State Budget Agreement Summary reports a fiscal year 2016 appropriation total of $7.138 billion, indicating an increase of $17.2 million.
In a press release Tuesday, Gov. Fallin and Sen. Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, expressed their pride in the budget agreement and the resulting appropriation bill.
“I’m extremely proud of the work the Legislature and my office have done to produce a fiscally responsible budget that adequately funds core government services even in the face of significant budget challenges,” Fallin wrote. “I’m also proud of the preliminary steps this budget takes to begin addressing our structural budget challenges to make budget writing more flexible and transparent in the future.”
Bingman’s comments echoed those of the Governor.
“We knew this would be a difficult budget year, but we believe we have delivered a responsible agreement that includes strategic spending cuts and much-needed apportionment reform. In a year when we were faced with a significant shortfall, difficult decisions had to be made to produce a balanced budget,” the statement read. “This budget reflects our commitment to fiscal responsibility, while adequately funding core services.”
Yet some leaders, past and present, argue that the budget creation process is less responsible and transparent than they would like. Some leaders are calling this budget less reformative than an ideal bill. Some are calling it business as usual at 23rd and Lincoln.
“We (conservatives) would have liked more cuts,” Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, appropriations committee chair said, “but we had to write a bill that the House, Governor and Senate would sign. We got the best bill we could.”
In an article by Rick Green in The Oklahoman published June 3, 2014, Oklahoma Treasurer Ken Miller described the inconsistency of the process.
“A general appropriation bill is a political document, and because it is a political document, you sometimes want those documents to say things you want to project,” Miller said.
The 2014 general appropriation, or budget, was $7.11 billion. For 2015, it’s $7.12 billion.
“I’m not trying to be critical,” Miller said. “I’m not saying it’s a bad budget. The numbers are what they are. This year’s GA bill is larger than last year’s GA bill.”
The budget shows a greater increase with this year’s appropriation bill. Rather than an increase from $7.11 billion to $7.12 billion, the increase for 2016 will jump from $7.12 billion to $7.14 billion, nearly twice the increase.
In comparing the 2016 appropriation to 2015, further similarities are revealed. In 2015, $291.7 million were used from what legislators call “one-time money,” or nonrecurring funds to pay for recurring or ongoing expenses. In other words, to use funds which are not replenished to bolster the operation of expenses which will continue into the future.
In the same article in The Oklahoman, late Rep. David Dank, R-Oklahoma City, criticized the use of nonrecurring funds.
There was $188 million less money available for appropriation in the new budget compared to the previous one. To help make up for the shortfall, the budget taps a number of revolving funds, or accounts held by individual governmental agencies. These are sometimes called one- time funds because it’s not clear whether such money would be available to draw on again in the next budget cycle.
As Dank put it in the floor debate:
“If you stuck a gun to my head and said, ‘You have to vote for this budget or else,’ I would tell you to pull the trigger. This is incredibly deceptive. We’re deceiving the public. It’s irresponsible to take all this one-time money and use it on recurring expenses.”
State Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and was instrumental in drawing up the budget, said he would have preferred less use of one-time sources.
“But we have to negotiate what will pass both the House and the Senate and be signed by the governor,” he said.
In this year’s appropriation, so-called one-time funds used to fill gaps in the budget have risen to $485.9 million from nonrecurring sources for a 66.58 percent increase.
Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville, who serves as chair for the Appropriations and Budget committee spoke about the budget process and the hard work of creating the fiscal year 2016 budget saying that since the second day of session, legislators have been busy crafting the legislation.
“We’ve done it. We went through it (the budget),” he said. “Our priorities, for the people of Oklahoma, have not been cut as deep as some of the other programs, but we had to find $611 million and we’ve got a $7.1 billion budget that is balanced and it will still operate the agencies in the state of Oklahoma.”
Three days prior however, during his address to the 11th Annual Stephens County GOP Fish Fry, Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb viewed Oklahoma’s budget priorities differently.
“Right now the legislature’s facing a $611.3 million budget hole,” he said. “It’s an opportunity, not to find $611 million; it’s an opportunity to do what the private sector does on a daily basis. Streamline. Eliminate. Serve better and make wise decisions, and quite frankly, this is an opportunity, to be creative, to be conservative and to be brilliant over these last days of this legislative session.”
The Senate passed the FY 2016 appropriations bill easily Friday, May 22, 2015 on a 38-9 vote. The bill will now go to Governor Fallin who is expected to sign it. The fiscal year begins July 1, 2015.
