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An editorial in today’s Tulsa World uses some pretty crazy logic to justify taxpayers in Dacoma, Cushing, Marlow and Hugo paying for low water dams in Tulsa.

A bill passed last year that included $25-million in bonds for the dams, but it was declared unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court.  Now the Tulsa World says that “the money is politically owed to Tulsa” since the bill did pass.  I don’t see how an illegal bill constitutes a political obligation.  Perhaps the only reason it passed last year was because it was logrolled into a bill with other bonds in order to get votes since it wouldn’t stand on its own. 

The editorial also argues that the people of Tulsa support the dams, it’s those in the suburbs that didn’t want it, causing a tax proposal to fail.  Well then let’s have another vote just in the City of Tulsa!  That seems to be a far better solution than to add to the state’s indebtedness in a time when the legislature is already trying to fill a $900-million hole.  That’s a much better solution than asking three-million people who don’t live in Tulsa to pony up tax dollars for economic development they will never see.

The Tulsa World does have it right with the last paragraph in the editorial, though.  Tulsa should not fall short of it’s goal of developing the river.  Tulsa should find a way to get the funding together.  But it should NOT be by digging into the pockets of taxpayers in Duncan, Woodward, Grove and Ada.

The CEO of General Motors is out of a job, apparently at the behest of the federal government which gave GM and Chrylser more than $13-billion late last year.  That money was contingent on the companies making changes and apparently those changes have not been good enough.

It’s a drastic example of what happens to the private sector when the government gets involved.  President Obama said in his remarks:

What we are asking is difficult. It will require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who have already made painful concessions to make even more. It will require creditors to recognise that they cannot hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts. Only then can we ask American taxpayers who have already put up so much of their hard-earned money to once more invest in a revitalized auto industry.

That’s nice and all, except that the American taxpayers weren’t asked if they wanted to “put up so much of their hard-earned money” in the auto industry and, if you asked them, probably wouldn’t want to “invest” more money in it now.

The original mistake was made by President Bush when he decided that the government needed to get involved instead of letting the bankruptcy system get involved.  That problem is now being compounded by President Obama.  Not only is the government now telling a private business how it will be structured, a new level of bureaucracy is being created.  Yes, there is now a “Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers” in the federal government.

The same federal government that has taken our national debt from $1-trillion in 1982 to $5.6-trillion in 2000 and $11-trillion today is now giving management advice to private business.  The same federal government that uses 1970’s technology to get satellites into space is telling the auto industry that it needs to modernize.  The same federal government that passed its appropriations bill this month, just six months into the fiscal year, is now giving 60-days to GM and 30-days to Chrysler to get their act together.

And this is less damaging than bankruptcy?

This is just one example of why Oklahoma lawmakers need to look at the federal stimulus money headed this way for any strings that may be attached.  While it’s doubtful that the federal government would replace our governor, it’s entirely possible that accepting the money will force an expansion of government on us that will need to be filled by state dollars in the future.

In perusing the online edition of the Oklahoman late Wednesday, I came upon a seemingly innocuous brief about a University of Oklahoma Regents meeting.  The brief says:

University of Oklahoma regents today are expected to authorize a request to lawmakers for $122.7 million in bonds to help pay for capital projects already under way. The OU Board of Regents is set to meet today on the OU-Tulsa campus. According to agenda information, OU administrators hope to issue bonds for the projects within eight to 10 months. About $66 million would finance a new utility plant. The rest would go toward a chemistry and biochemistry building, energy conservation system, renovation and expansion of Gould Hall and Collings Hall, dorm improvements and building acquisition.

Are they serious?

There are so many problems with this, it’s hard to know where to begin!  For starters, shouldn’t the financing for a project be in place before it’s underway?  I can’t believe that the university started a project without all the money in place, thinking that it could just ask the state for the money to finish it.  Who’s running this operation?

Next, let’s consider the amount the university wants: $123-million.  The ENTIRE Higher Education budget for the current year is $1,040-million, so OU alone is asking for bonds that equal 12-percent of the state’s entire spending on Higher Ed this year.  And this in a year when there’s a $900-million shortfall.  This in a year when it comes to light that Higher Ed spends $60-million on transportation alone.

And let’s not forget that four years ago, lawmakers approved $500-million in bonds for construction on colleges and universities.

In a joint op-ed this weekwith OSU President Burns Hargis on the topic of earmarks for research projects, OU President David Boren stated, “We firmly believe in transparency and our proposed projects are available for inspection by the public.”  Well I hope the same transparency is available on building projects because we’d like to see exactly how they were started without the apparently necessary $123-million in funding on hand.

Oklahoma taxpayers should not have to pay for poor planning by OU officials.  Lawmakers need to tell the university that these projects need to be put on hold until the university can raise the money for them.  OU has an endowment of over a billion dollars.  That endowment, not the pockets of taxpayers, should be the source of funding for these building projects.

This year, there are 117 days between the first Monday in February and the last Friday in May, the time alloted in the State Constitution for the legislative session.

There are 16 weekends in that period, so take 32-days off, leaving 85.

Both houses have passed resolutions that move the last day of session up a week so that it comes BEFORE Memorial Day weekend, so take another five days off, leaving 80.

Lawmakers don’t meet on Fridays, so another 16 days come off, leaving 64.

And, of course, nothing was done last week during Spring Break, so another four days were wasted, leaving 60 days of session.

We’ve already gone through 24 of those days leading up to this week, so back on Monday, there were 36 session days remaining.

36 days to pass a couple hundred bills and, oh yeah, get a budget together in the face of a $900-million shortfall.

So why on Earth was the Senate wasting part of one of those days on a resolution opposing China’s proposal to replace the Dollar as the world’s standard?  How about using the diminishing number of days remaining to figure out how to spend less dollars on state government?  Instead of useless, non-binding resolutions on matters that are far beyond the purview of the Oklahoma legislature, why not tackle something that state lawmakers have direct control over, like going through the budget line by line to find places to cut and areas of waste, fraud and abuse?

And if the answer is that there’s not enough time, my suggestion is better time management.

It’s a busy day for OFRG’s agenda at the State Capitol today.  Now that Spring Break is over and lawmakers are back to work, it’s time for bills that passed in their house of origin to go through the committee process in the opposite house.

The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider two House bills that could result in big savings for the state.  The first is HB 1410 which amends the Central Purchasing Act.  In a nutshell, it allows agencies to handle more purchasing on their own so that the Department of Central Services can concentrate on bigger contracts.  Right now, DCS spends more than half of its time on contracts that only cover 4% of the amount it spends on purchases.  The governor’s budget relies on getting $35-million in savings from this, so it’s an important bill.  An independent survey of state spending found that reforms could save up to $70-million per year. 

The other House bill in Senate Appropriations is HB 1032 which helps modernize state government.  It allows for most licenses and permits to be renewed online saving time and money for both the state and those needing the licenses.  The measure also puts more state spending information online for people to see.  Anything bought with a state purchasing card would now be able to be identified.

Over in the House, the Rules Committee is taking up Senate Joint Resolution 12 which would put term limits for statewide elected officials up for a vote of the people.  Since two-thirds of voters approved term limits for legislators back in 1990 and polls show 70% or more support the idea for other statewide elected officials, it looks very promising!

It’s OEA Lobby Day at the State Capitol.  From what I hear, the place is packed, begging the question: Who is teaching your kids today?

Of course, SB 834 is the topic of the day.  The OEA doesn’t want school districts to be free of mandates because then it will lose a lot of its power.  And when threatened with that, you use scare tactics to stir up your base.  Apparently the “politics of fear” is only a bad thing when someone you disagree with is using it.

Both the Oklahoman and the Tulsa World have come out in support of SB 834.  It’s common-sense legislation that puts more power over education in the hands of elected school boards.  What works in Oklahoma City may not be the best option for Durant or Miami or Altus, so why not let each district have more say over how best to educate children?

State Auditor Steve Burrage said in an interview recently that the proposed Office of Accountability that would be created by Senate Bill 646 would simply duplicate what his office can already do in terms of performance audits.

We agree.  And in light of another article over the weekend showing that the state spends $24-million on outside attorneys, OFRG stands opposed to the idea of spending tax dollars for duplicative services.

It’s interesting to note that the amount of waste, fraud and abuse in state government spending according to Burrage is probably around $900-million based on statistics for the average large organization.  That happens to be about the size of the shortfall the state is facing. 

State lawmakers essentially wasted last week, prefering a light Spring Break schedule to looking at the books of each agency and finding places to cut spending.  The ability already exists for those charged with overseeing state spending to get a handle on it.  A new level of bureaucracy is not needed if lawmakers would simply assess the state budget line by line and, where that’s not possible, use the abilities the state already has to examine agency spending for places to cut.

Spring Break is over at the State Capitol.

Yes, technically speaking lawmakers were in session last week, but there was hardly any work done at all.  You can count on one hand how many committee meetings were held and the length of the sessions were counted in minutes, not hours.  Of course one of the resolutions passed in both bodies was changing the adjournment date from May 29th to May 22nd.  So in a week of little work, lawmakers took another week off their schedule.

It’s a shame, too, because the bill deadlines are still out there.  They haven’t taken a week off.  The Senate has two weeks to pass House bills out of committee and the House has three weeks to pass Senate bills out of committee.  That’s not much time.  Here at OFRG, we were very proud that our entire legislative agenda passed in the house of origin, but that’s only the first step.

We are continuing to monitor the status of bills and resolutions to reform the state’s initiative petition process, limit statewide elected officers to two terms in office and bring more transparency and accountability to the Department of Education.  Just as important, OFRG will be monitoring the budget process and how the federal stimulus money is going to be spent.  Both processes need to be open and fiscally responsible.  Now is NOT the time to be expanding state government.

Although expanding the amount of time legislators were spending on the people’s business would have been nice.

Sen. Clark Jolley has an op-ed piece in the Norman Transcript today on Senate Bill 1111 which he wrote to bring more transparency and accountability to state testing in schools.  It’s always good to get information right from the source on why a bill is necessary and Sen. Jolley does an excellent job.

Sen. Jolley mentions it, but I think it’s worth stressing the bipartisan nature of this bill.  One of the Senate co-authors is Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre (D-Tulsa) and in the House, Rep. Jabar Shumate (D-Tulsa) is a co-author.  Sen. Jolley mentions that the Oklahoma Education Association supports it as well, so you can see that both sides of the aisle are coming together on this.

I think that’s because it makes sense to have those in charge of policy NOT in charge of deciding what test scores show the effectiveness of that policy.  It gives parents more confidence in state testing results and can lead to changes in school district policies that result in a better education.  Which is supposed to be how it all works.

The Tulsa World editorial page today came out in favor of Senate Bill 834 which will allow school districts with underperforming schools to act like charter schools, freeing them of some regulations.  This is a bill OFRG supports as well.

Not everyone is happy with the idea.  This flier being handed out supposedly raises a lot of questions about the bill and aims to scare people that there will be mass layoffs and children packed into classrooms like sardines.

I’m thinking that most parents won’t notice much of a change, except that some bad teachers will be out of a job much quicker and sooner than would otherwise happen.  SB 834 allows districts to have more control which is supposed to be the idea of education.  If local districts have control, then the State Department of Education, the OEA and legislators will have less control over education and there’s the rub.  Those that want to keep that control are trying their hardest to stop SB 834.

But the best accountability lies with those closest to the problem, not those at the State Capitol or the nearby Hodge Building.  Give school boards the power so that if they start firing teachers for no reason or packing kids into a classroom, voters can use the power of the polls to replace them.  Voters only have a say over one State Representative and one Senator, but school boards are another matter.

Contact your State Representative and Senator and let them know you want more local control for school districts.

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