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Oklahoma City’s Weed and Seed program has apparently not been managed well, to the point that two administrators of the program have been disciplined.  But, as an editorial in today’s Oklahoman points out, trying to get information about the situation has been difficult at best.

The Weed and Seed program has received nearly $6-million in the last five years, but it wasn’t until the Police Department took over the program this year that questions were raised about how that money had been used.  Police officials should be commended for going through all the records when they took over and finding the problems with the management of the grants.

But at the same time, taxpayers deserve better transparency and accountability.  As the editorial points out, names of police officers that are put on paid administrative leave are reported to the public.  And apparently in this case one of the city workers is not allowed to go into his office.  A suspension of that kind should be made public.

We hope that Oklahoma City officials will see the light and grant the public information requests made by reporters so that taxpayers can look for themselves at any problems in Weed and Seed.  It’s only when taxpayers can see how their money is being used that they can make informed decisions about programs and the elected officials that made them possible.

The Tulsa World reports today that Tulsa’s airport is set to get federal stimulus money for new a “new state-of-the-art baggage system.”  It’s one of ten airports in the country to get the baggage money with others including the major metropolitan areas of Cody, Wyoming, (population less than 10,000) and Bozeman, Montana (population less than 30,000).

It’s another example of how the rationale for passing the stimulus package looks nothing like the reality.  The idea was to pump money into the economy quickly to create and protect jobs.  Pro Publica, an independent, non-profit newsroom reports that in the first six months, only 12% of the stimulus money has been spent.  That’s not much of a pump. 

Remember this when listening to promises about health care reform.  What you hear as reasons to support it may not be at all what you get on the other end.

Our Blueprint for Transparency look at school district websites in Oklahoma has only been out since Monday, yet already we are seeing school districts take action.

A spokeswoman for the Enid School District told the Enid News and Eaglethat it was “nice to get a list like this” of what should be on a district website and certainly made it sound like they will be using the Blueprint to improve their site.

The Associated Press reports that Vici is proud to be listed among the schools that had the least amount of information missing from its website.  Superintendent Steven Poretto says “it takes some work but it’s worth it” and thinks that having as much information on the website as possible shows the quality of education at the school.

The Mid-Del School District has contacted us to make sure it knows what it needs to improve its website in order to meet all the criteria.  We are willing to do the same for any of the districts in the report.

We are glad to see these districts using the Blueprint for Transparency as it was intended: a guide to improving taxpayer access to important information.  We encourage all districts to do so and hope taxpayers will let the districts know how important they feel transparency is.

On Monday, OFRG released its Blueprint for Transparency for public school district websites showing how every district fared in meeting a list of ten criteria.  While most districts have a website (85% of the 531 have one), the information on those websites is woefully lacking in most cases.  The Oklahoman wrote an editorial on Monday supporting OFRG’s position.

For some reason, former OEA President Roy Bishop wrote the following on his blog:

One of the components of SQ 744, aka the HOPE Campaign, is the commitment to school transparency. In an editorial, both of the Oklahoman and Oklahomans for Responsible Government support school transparency. They are finally seeing the light. Can their endorsement of SQ 744 be coming soon?

No, Mr. Bishop.  OFRG is adamantly opposed to State Question 744 because it would force every other state agency to take a cut of more than 20% - the same state agencies dealing with budget cuts right now - or a one-billion dollar tax increase on the backs of Oklahomans trying to deal with a recession.

Further, State Question 744 is anything BUT transparent.  Here is the ballot language for State Question 744:

The measure repeals a Section of the State Constitution. The repealed section required the Legislature annually to spend $42.00 for each common school student. Common schools offer pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade.The measure also adds a new Article to the Constitution. It sets a minimum average amount the State must annually spend on common schools. It requires the State to spend annually, no less than the average amount spent on each student by the surrounding states. Those surrounding states are Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado and New Mexico. When the average amount spent by surrounding states declines, Oklahoma must spend the amount it spent the year before.

The measure deals with money spend on day-to-day operations of the schools and school districts. This includes spending on instructions, support services and non-instruction services. The measure does not deal with money spent to pay debt, on buildings or on other capital needs.The measure requires that increased spending begin in the first fiscal year after its passage. It requires that the surrounding state average be met in the third fiscal year after passage.

The measure does not raise taxes, nor does it provide new funding for the new spending requirements.

 

What part of that deals with transparency?  The answer is: none of it.  There is no provision on how the money will be spent other than it can’t be spent on debt or capital expenses.  The measure is also not transparent about where the money comes from since there is no funding mechanism for State Question 744.

Here’s hoping Oklahoma voters “see the light” about State Question 744 and the damage it will do to the state budget.  Our study already shows taxpayers are in the dark about how most school districts are spending the money they get now.  Putting more money into the system and basing it on decisions made outside of Oklahoma will do nothing to make the process more transparent.

Earlier this week, the Gates Foundation turned down Tulsa Public Schools’ request for a grant aimed at improving teacher effectiveness.  As an editorial in the Tulsa World points out, this does NOT mean that the district should give up on the plan.  Obviously the idea was good enough to get the district into the final grouping of school districts, so it’s one that should be pursued.

The plan would cost $88-million over five years with the Gates Foundation kicking in $55-million of that.  So the district just has to come up with $11-million extra per year to make up for the Gates money that isn’t coming.  We understand that economic conditions are tight and that $11-million is a lot of money.  But we’re also talking about a district that has $347-million in it’s general revenue fund according to its preliminary budget for 2009-10.  So we’re talking about a mere 3.2% of funding.

The Tulsa Public Schools need to go through that preliminary budget again and find that 3.2% of the General Fund that can be taken out and given to support the plan.

It appears Governor Henry is going to call a special session of the legislature to deal with the state budget.  Revenue collections came in well below expectations for July, so it seems as though lawmakers will try to alter the budget so that there won’t be any more across-the-board cuts that affect all agencies.

Some legislators are also talking about using the Rainy Day Fund.  About $225-million of the $600-million in the fund could be used for the current fiscal year.  But it would be a mistake to see this as the first option.  As we have said numerous times, ALL unnecessary spending needs to be cut from the budget before any Rainy Day money is used.  It makes no sense to dip into savings to pay for something that should be cut.

Every agency head needs to go before lawmakers and justify every dollar in the budget.  If they can’t justify something, it’s immediately cut.  If they can justify it, they need to rank it in terms of priorities.  Then lawmakers need to eliminate all the low priority items from every agency.  Any talk of Rainy Day funds should wait until February, during the regular session when lawmakers will have a better idea of the state’s financial picture and whether there are supplemental funds available to plug budget gaps.

All of this, of course, needs to be done in public hearings.  Taxpayers have a right to see and comment upon the cuts that are being made as well as the cuts that are being avoided.

It appears that some moderate Democrats in Congress are at least talking about scrapping the health care plan and starting over again, reforming in increments instead of all at once.  While President Obama might see that as a setback, there is no shame in starting over.  It took Thomas Edison thousands of tries to develop a light bulb that worked the way he wanted it to.  As we pointed out before, it took over a year to get Social Security developed back in the 30’s.

What’s wrong with going back to the drawing board and finding common ground on reforms?  Now that we’ve had a summer’s worth of discussion, let’s get everyone back into a room with a bunch of paper and pencils and make a list of priorities and work on the top two or three.  Maybe, like Social Security, the President needs to create a blue ribbon panel that will go around the country and hold numerous town hall meetings to get ideas on improving health care.  All the meetings could be televised and people could e-mail ideas in if they couldn’t attend.

Don’t you think that’s a far better idea than having a couple lawmakers (and possibly lobbyists) in a room creating a 1200-page bill that hardly has any debate?  The American people are proving this summer that they want to be a part of the discussion and that they don’t think this bill is the answer.

There’s no shame in starting over, as long as it’s right in the end.

The Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame has a wonderful idea: create a trail of markers around the state highlighting Oklahoma’s contribution to music and expand its museum in Muskogee to include performance space.

Unfortunately, the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame also has a bad idea: have the state spend over $12-million to pay for most of it.  The trail markers would be about a million dollars with the museum expansion taking the rest, plus additional federal money and private donations according to the article.

The President of the Hall of Fame Board is quoted in the story as saying that he understands that economic times are tough, but he then went on to say that this will somehow boost economic development all over the state.  But remember that the vast majority of the money is going to the museum in Muskogee.  The rest of the state gets a couple dozen plaques that somehow magically boost economic development.

If the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame truly wants economic development for all of Oklahoma, it needs to support ideas that will attract businesses to come here, encourage small businesses to start up and grow and put money back in the pockets of Oklahoma taxpayers so they can then spend it on a trip to the museum.  None of that will happen by putting up a couple dozen plaques around the state.

As for the museum expansion, the last thing the State of Oklahoma needs to do is commit millions of dollars it doesn’t have to another project.  Especially since the money would likely have to come out of the Rainy Day Fund.  When you’re already struggling to pay the electricity bill, you don’t use your savings account to build an addition on the house.

Maybe the meeting protests are helping after all.  A Washington Post article today points out that a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators is calling for any health care reforms to actually save the country money instead of spending more.  The devil, of course, is in the details but at least the talk is not about spending another trillion dollars we don’t have.

Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole says in the article that Republicans have to have ideas of their own and can’t just be the party of “no.”  The man they call “Dr. No,” Senator Tom Coburn does have a plan.  He outlined it at a town hall meeting he held on Thursday.  You can read more about it on Sen. Coburn’s website, but the general idea as mentioned in the Tulsa World article is:

…subsidizing private health insurance and medical savings accounts through tax credits of $2,295 per person or $5,710 per family. Coburn says his plan would save the federal government $70 million a year and be more effective.

When a car breaks down, the first solution is not to buy a new car and make sure that it’s the most expensive one that the dealer promises will never break down again.  The first step is to see if a minor fix will be enough to keep the car running.

What’s the problem with trying Dr. Coburn’s plan first?  It seems simpler and apparently its far less costly.  It would seem to me at a time when everybody is in belt-tightening mode, making another big purchase is sending the country in the wrong direction.

The latest state revenue report is in and, like last month, the state is falling short of projections.  As a result, state agencies are getting five-percent less this month than they expected.  Governor Henry is quoted in the Journal Record as saying, “the immediate across-the-board cuts triggered by this revenue shortfall will cause significant hardship for state services and programs.  It will be difficult and painful to absorb these reductions, but it is no cause for panic.”

But is a 5% cut really a significant hardship?  State agencies have supposedly been preparing for these cuts the past couple months.  Surely they have identified areas of spending that are not needed and can be put off for another year or eliminated altogether.  And remember that a 5% cut for one month is less than a half-percent on the year.

No one is giving specifics, but the Governor and legislative leaders have all mentioned the Rainy Day Fund as a possibility in case revenues continue to fall.  But before any money is taken from the savings account, the state needs to eliminate all unnecessary spending.  That’s why cuts are the proper course of action to take.  If we use savings to continue wasteful spending, it compounds the problem.

In addition to looking at how to cope with the current revenue problem, state officials would do well to look at how Oklahoma crafts its budget in the first place.  Trying to plan spending based on revenue projections made nearly a year before allows too much error.

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