Passage of SQ 744 would mean bad news for Oklahoma state budget

BY DAVID BLATT Oklahoman  

Policy group: SQ 744 to cost $1.7 billion over 3 years

The measure calls for per-pupil spending to be at neighboring states' levels.

By BARBARA HOBEROCK World Capitol Bureau
Published: 7/21/2010  2:22 AM
Last Modified: 7/21/2010  4:56 AM

OKLAHOMA CITY — A ballot measure that would require per-pupil spending to be increased to that of neighboring states would cost $1.7 billion over three years, according to the Oklahoma Policy Institute.

Contact: David Blatt, Director

Office: (918) 794-3944; Cell: (918) 859-8747

to be "The Wrong Solution" for Oklahoma

 (Tulsa, July 20, 2010):  State Question 744, the proposed constitutional amendment that would peg the annual education budget in Oklahoma to funding levels in six neighboring states, is the wrong solution to a real problem, according to a new issue brief from Oklahoma Policy Institute.

Put Leadership above Politics

By DAVID BLATT
Published: 5/12/2010 

We are at a truly critical time for Oklahoma. The state faces its most severe budget crisis of the past quarter century, perhaps the most severe in its history. As revenues have fallen, successive rounds of budget cuts have created hardships for those whose health, security and livelihood depend on state-funded services.

What I know about the high finance of oil and gas production is not very much, but I do recall an economics class lesson about eggs.

Here's what the professor taught me: If people are hungry for eggs, the price will rise. Farmers will buy more chickens, build bigger henhouses and bring more eggs to the market.

But if eggs go out of style, the price will fall. Farmers will eat more omelets, have fried chicken on Sunday and turn their henhouses into tractor sheds.

Tulsa's nonprofit social service agencies began steeling themselves Thursday for what some see as a life-or-death struggle in the state Legislature.

"We are in deep, deep trouble," said Dan Arthrell, director of public policy for the Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa.

With state social services agencies facing funding cuts of another 10 percent or more for the budget year that begins July 1, local nonprofit agencies are braced for an increase in demand for their services and a reduction in resources.

Published: 15-Apr-2010

As the current legislative session began, analysts for the Oklahoma Policy Institute and the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs were on the same page a few times concerning the wisdom of tax credits and other business incentive programs.

by MICHEAL MCNUTT

Published April 4, 2010

Ideas suggested by the governor to generate more money for the state so far haven’t been met with enthusiasm.

POINT OF VIEW STATE BUDGET SHORTFALLS

by David Blatt

Published April 4, 2010

How quickly can a crisis become a catastrophe? Apparently, about as fast as a budget crunch becomes a budget crisis.

To those who write definitions goes the power to modify meanings. To those who write budgets — or analyze them — goes the privilege of defining down or defining up the nature of a fiscal shortfall.