Apr
30
Another veto for reform
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Governor Brad Henry is again showing that his commitment to bipartisanship is all talk and no action with his veto of Senate Bill 1111. The measure would have put education testing standards in the hands of an independent Office of Accountability instead of the State Department of Education which has a vested interest in the results.
A recent study by the Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition found “a significant problem in the discrepancy between how Oklahoma students fare on national tests compared to state tests.” Putting the standards in the hands of an independent part of the Department of Education would have vastly improved the situation.
The study also found that, “the incentives in the current structure in Oklahoma do not provide for sufficient faith that standards are set at a high level, that achievement is measured accurately and data are available freely.” All of those deficiencies would have been fixed by SB 1111.
Governor Henry’s veto message is perplexing because he again uses a question of constitutionality as an excuse. He says he can’t sign this bill because he thinks it may be unconstitutional, yet he signed a bill last year with three separate bond proposals in it which WAS ruled unconstitutional. So I submit that the Governor’s opinions on constitutionality are apparently not very sound. Besides that, it’s a clear violation of the Separation of Powers for him to “declare” that a bill is unconstitutional. I believe that is the purview of the State Supreme Court.
The Governor says he wants to work together on a solution, but he has said the same thing year after year on tort reform and it has only resulted in vetoes, not compromises. Here’s hoping that this time it will be different. For the children.
Apr
29
Playing politics with audits?
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According to the Tulsa World editorial today, two school superintendents think that their districts are being audited because they have come out in favor of Senate Bill 1111. State Superintendent Sandy Garrett denies this, saying she didn’t even know the position of one of them.
There’s no way of knowing if it’s true or not, but it does show at least the potential for politics to get involved in education. Which is exactly why SB1111 is so important. What it does is reduce the chance of politics being involved in state testing.
With the Department of Education involved in giving standardized tests and then deciding what scores constitute proficiency in a subject, there’s an inherent bias to want to make it look like students are doing well. This has resulted in a significant disparity between how Oklahoma students score on Oklahoma tests and how they score on national standardized tests.
All Senate Bill 1111 does is take the testing component away from the Department of Education’s direct control and puts it in the hands of the already existing Education Overight Board’s Office of Accountability that right now is in charge of performance reviews of each school. It’s a common sense change that will give parents more confidence in the testing results. And it will reduce however slightly the opportunity for politics to enter into how our children are taught.
Apr
28
There is no doubt that Oklahoma has some tax incentives that are no longer providing the economic boost lawmakers sought and therefore should be eliminated. But the Oklahoma Policy Institute is dead wrong when taking aim at those that encourage deep well and horizontal drilling in Oklahoma. Policy Institute Director of policy David Blatt says:
“As the state begins to wrestle with what looks to be enormous and prolonged budget shortfalls, this seems to be the right time for policymakers to carefully review the tax breaks being offered to oil and gas producers and to consider whether there should be some appropriate caps placed on the amount of tax rebates that can be claimed,”
The press release states that over the past five years, producers have claimed about $340-million in incentives and rebates. That’s less than $70-million per year (a reminder that Higher Education spent $60-million on travel alone last year).
To refute Mr. Blatt’s implication that capping or eliminating the incentives will bring in more money while not affecting jobs in Oklahoma at all, I refer to that bastion of supply-side theory, Alec Baldwin. You see, the state of New York is in far worse financial shape than Oklahoma and New York’s governor was considering reducing or eliminating the tax breaks to film and television production companies that work in the state. According to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, Baldwin told Gov. Patterson: “if these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television is going to collapse and it’s all going to go to California.”
So apparently tax breaks DO matter to industries that have a lot of upfront costs which may or may not pay off in the end.
Leaving aside the fact that the oil and gas industry is one of the main economic engines of the state and helps Oklahoma weather tough financial times, there’s also the nation’s reliance on foreign oil. Taking away incentives to drill means that another tanker or two will be crossing the seas with oil from countries that hate us and drive up the price.
So for the sake of $70-million, the Oklahoma Policy Institute wants to throw people out of work and increase dependence of foreign oil. I think I’d rather eliminate all travel for Higher Education and realize true savings.
Apr
27
The title of this post comes from a Twitter posting by Sen. Jay Paul Gumm (D-Durant) when describing the process of passing appropriation shell bills in the Senate. It’s one of those sausage-making elements of state government that in order to meet bill deadlines, you have to pass bills that allow agencies to spend money next year. But you don’t have a budget yet, so the bills just have zeroes in them until the budget is passed. Then when the handful of lawmakers that actually develop the budget make it public, the numbers are put in and lawmakers vote again.
All this with almost no debate and little to no input from lawmakers on exactly how much an agency like Department of Human Services should spend and what that money should be spent on. That’s due in part to the fact that it usually comes very late in the session when lawmakers are scrambling to get bills passed.
Sen. Tom Ivester (D-Sayre) has an op-ed in the Oklahoman on the same subject. He argues that lawmakers haven’t earned their paychecks yet because the most important task, the budget, is not done. OFRG agrees and pointed it out in a post earlier this year on the actual amount of time lawmakers spend in session. But this is not a partisan issue. The process was developed when Democrats were in charge and has simply remained that way now that Republicans are in charge.
Well OFRG believes that “way” needs to be scrapped.
There needs to be an interim study this summer on a better budget process that is more transparent to taxpayers and allows for more debate by members. Agencies should have to justify every dollar they spent in the last budget and make the case for the spending they want in the current budget. Lawmakers need to set priorities and only give agencies the money needed for those priorities. And perhaps Oklahoma needs to join the 21 other states in the union that run on a two-year budget cycle so that one entire legislative session can focus solely on the budget.
Whatever the answer, the current system is not it. Oklahoma was a leader in posting state spending on the Internet. It should similarly be a leader in having its budget process open to scrutiny and debate.
Apr
27
University lobbying and earmarks
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An interesting story in Sunday’s Oklahoman about OU and OSU asking for nearly $70-million in research earmarks and also paying more than a million dollars over the past couple years on lobbyists. According to the article, having universities get earmarks ”disrupts the flow of competitive research grants awarded by federal agencies.” It would seem to me that having the scientists at the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation determine what is research worth funding gets better results than having 535 members of Congress do that.
Just as troubling is the notion that the state’s two biggest schools spent a combined average of about $500,000 a year for the past three years on lobbyists in Washington. OU says its lobbying funds come out of a different fund than the one that receives state funding and tuition. OSU admits its lobbying money DOES come from that fund. Yet another example of your tax dollars not being spent in the classroom to educate students. It makes you wonder how much of Higher Education’s one-billion dollar funding stream is similarly bypassing the student.
If we are going to have federal funding of scientific research done at universities, it should be scientists, not politicians, that determine which research is done and where. Not only would that make the process more fair, it would reduce the need universities have for lobbyists and more money can then go into the classrooms.
Apr
24
One of the House bills passed this week in the State Senate could end up saving the state some of the $24-million that it is spending on outside attorneys. House Bill 2167 by Rep. Mark McCullough (R-Sapulpa) requires that government contracts with private attorneys that are expected to exceed $5,000 must be competitively bid.
A story in the Oklahoman last month showed the state paying millions of dollars in such contracts, some of those to out-of-state firms. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal shows how on a national level, those kinds of no-bid contracts have made for some ethically questionable situations.
The bill has to be voted on in the House one more time to approve some amendments and will then be sent on to the Governor for his signature. This common sense approach to attorney contracts will give another protection to taxpayers that their money is being spent properly instead of used for political patronage. Let’s see if Governor Henry feels the same way or whether his many attorney donors will call in a veto on this as well.
Apr
24
The Oklahoma legislature is getting some national attention today because of a vote to make a song by the Flaming Lips the state’s official rock song failed. But the important point to remember is that it didn’t fail because of 39-votes against it. It failed because 14 lawmakers didn’t vote at all.
When you get right down to it, a member of the Oklahoma House only has a few duties outlined in the state constitution: propose bills, vote on bills, approve a budget. Obviously legislators do much more than that, especially when it comes to helping their constituents who are having problems negotiating the bureaucratic system. But the basic duty is to propose and then vote on bills.
Ten Republicans and four Democrats did not vote on SJR 24. Only three more yes votes were needed to pass it. Of the 14 lawmakers who did not vote, only one of them, Rep. Gary Banz (R-Midwest City), had missed every other vote on that day, essentially proving that he wan’t there. The 13 others who did not vote on SJR 24 were present and did vote earlier in the day on the override of the Governor’s stem cell research ban veto.
The legislature already limits itself to working just four days a week so that members can spend more time at their homes and businesses and in their communities. It’s not too much to ask that the legislators actually stay for the entire legislative session and vote on all the bills that are presented.
Those that decry the result of the vote as having disenfranchised the nearly 11-thousand people that voted to have the Flaming Lips song as the state rock song need to remember that nearly 500-thousand people were disenfranchised by 14 members not voting.
If state lawmakers are apathetic about voting on bills, is it any wonder that registered voters are similarly apathetic about going to the polls?
Apr
23
In a story in Wednesday’s Oklahoman about an income tax cut bill that passed the House, there was a troubling comment.
It’s estimated the state’s actual budget deficit will be closer to about $300 million, as federal economic stimulus money and some available cash on hand could take care of about $600 million of the expected shortfall…
That sounds like federal stimulus money is being used in the state budget for continuing operations. And that is NOT how the stimulus should be used. It should be above what the state spends and used only for one-time expenses, not ongoing appropriations that the state will have to replace with General Fund dollars next year.
Of course, we don’t know anything about the status of the state budget because it is cobbled together behind closed doors by a few lawmakers and then an announcement is made and it’s presented to the House and Senate as a done-deal that can’t be changed at all and it’s either voted up or down.
Whether the state can afford to reduce income taxes or not this year is a discussion worth having. But there also needs to be a lot more discussion about the stimulus money and how it is going to be used in the upcoming budget. Oklahoma cannot afford to bloat its budget with federal dollars that won’t be around next year. That’s an irresponsible use of money that is supposed to stimulate above and beyond the existing budget.
Apr
23
People will get another chance to override Governor’s veto
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Governor Brad Henry on Tuesday vetoed Senate Bill 609 which would have given a little more oversight of the appointment of Workers’ Compensation judges by having the Senate approve of appointments made by the governor.
The bill would also have reduced the number of those judges from 10 to eight. Immediately after the veto, the Senate passed House Joint Resolution 1041 which puts the provisions of the vetoed bill to a vote of the people. This is the second veto by Governor Henry that can be overridden by the people in 2010. Voter ID is the other.
Governor Henry says the process would be politicized by getting the Senate involved as if having a governor choose a candidate from a list provided by the Judicial Nominating Commission is not political at all. Comparing the process to what happens with federal judges in Washington D.C. is a flawed argument because the process will be used far less often for Workers’ Comp judges than what the federal government sees. Another flawed argument is the Governor calling the bill a clear violation of the state constitution. That is not a decision for the governor to make. it is only the State Supreme Court that can make that distinction.
Governor Henry won his last election by a nearly two to one margin. But those same voters will have the final say on this decision by the Governor as well. And the people are the ultimate branch of government with the final check and balance.
Apr
20
Unintended consequences
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The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has sent a letter to President Obama with their concerns about how the President’s budget could affect the oil and gas industry in the state.
According to the commissioners, some of the measures in the budget intended to raise more money and decrease the country’s dependence on oil would end up hurting Oklahoma’s energy industry. They point out that oil and gas contribute the largest single portion of the state’s education revenue and anything that would hurt the industry ends up hurting education.
There’s no doubt that decreasing the dependence on foreign oil is something the country should strive for. But a part of that solution is domestic sources of oil and gas. If what the Corporation Commission says is true, these provisions of the President’s budget need to be eliminated.
One of the reasons Oklahoma is faring better than most states during these tough economic times is because of the oil and gas industry and the high-paying jobs it has. The domestic industry needs to be encouraged, not discouraged, or else the country’s dependence on foreign oil will only send more money overseas.
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