Author: Steve Lewis

Oklahoma enters Fiscal Year 2027 with billions in reserves and surplus cash (Capitol Update)

As Oklahoma settles into Fiscal Year 2027, which began July 1, advocates for education, health care, public safety, and other state services will begin trying to determine how much funding may become available for appropriation. The new Legislature will convene… Read more [More...]

New education laws take effect in Oklahoma this school year (Capitol Update)

As the school year begins, my thoughts turn to some of the new requirements Oklahoma schools must attend to in the year ahead. As usual, legislators have enacted a variety of education laws they deem necessary to improve student outcomes… Read more [More...]

What didn’t make Oklahoma’s 2026 House interim study list? (Capitol Update)

Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, announced last Friday which interim studies he had approved for the 2026 interim and the committees they were assigned to. Hilbert approved 92 of the 120 studies requested by House members and denied 28. There are… Read more [More...]

Rethinking pretrial detention in Oklahoma (Capitol Update)

Sen. Mark Mann, D-Oklahoma City, has requested an interim study entitled “Does Oklahoma have the Resources Necessary to Implement Criminal Pretrial Supervision Requirement?” The Senate, unlike the House, does not publish the specifics of interim study requests. However, from the… Read more [More...]

Senate Public Safety Committee gets new leadership (Capitol Update)

The first Senate chairmanship change for the upcoming legislative session occurred last week when Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, named Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee. Sen. Spencer Kern, R-Duncan, was named the… Read more [More...]

The problem with Oklahoma’s plan for a tax-free future (Capitol Update)

Another step toward Gov. Kevin Stitt’s goal of eliminating the state income tax largely went unnoticed this session. Although more complicated than his earlier flat-budget mantra, this move is, in my view, just as damaging. At the beginning of the… Read more [More...]

What Oklahoma House members want to study this interim (Capitol Update)

The deadline for House of Representatives members to request interim studies was last Friday, and the House has now published those requests. In the House, studies must be approved by the Speaker, which is expected to happen before July 24th.… Read more [More...]

What the State Equalization Board meeting tells us about Oklahoma’s budget (Capitol Update)

Reports of the June 15 State Equalization Board meeting remind me of a few things about state financing that we don’t often think about. The board met to adjust the Fiscal Year 2027 revenue estimate, reflecting actions taken by the… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma ranks 48th in education, but lawmakers are betting on literacy reform (Capitol Update)

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2026 KIDS COUNT Data Book, published earlier this month, ranked Oklahoma 44th in overall child well-being, keeping the state among the bottom 10 nationwide. Oklahoma’s lowest major-category ranking was in education, where it placed 48th.… Read more [More...]

HB 3742 brings long-needed discovery reforms to Oklahoma courts (Capitol Update)

Although Oklahoma ranks 4th in the nation for incarceration per 100,000 people, reforms aimed at making the criminal legal system fairer and less reliant on incarceration remain difficult to achieve. If incarcerating people at a higher rate than 46 other… Read more [More...]