Quotes of the Day

“Yeah, so now, we’re not just screaming at the building. We want in.”

– Tulsa Public Schools teacher and state Senate candidate John Waldron, on the surge of educators running for office two years after more than 20,000 Oklahomans rallied unsuccessfully for education funding at the Capitol (Source)

“We now lose $14 per day for every Medicaid resident. A 25 percent cut, which is on the table, would mean 93 percent of nursing homes would have to close their doors. That is 16,800 elders that would have nowhere to go. The right cut is zero percent.”

-Kimberly Green, of assisted-living company Diakonos Group, warning of dire consequences of Medicaid-provider cuts (Source)

“The most important thing we have to deal with right now is the budget because if we don’t deal with the budget, the rest of the plan that we’re here to talk about really falls apart, falls apart very quickly.”

-Oklahoma Health Care Authority CEO Nico Gomez, speaking to a group in Durant about the Medicaid Rebalancing Act of 2020 (Source)

“It is deeply concerning that DHS may not maintain all planned activities in this reform effort due to Oklahoma’s reported revenue failures. The gains made by DHS since 2012 are fragile, and in many instances have not taken root firmly within the agency. Following the investment of new resources to set this agency on a trajectory of reform, it could be a shattering setback for children, DHS, and this reform, if efforts now halt and progress is reversed.”

-A report by court-ordered monitors of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services’ efforts to fix serious deficiencies in the state’s child welfare system (Source)

“It just breaks my heart that we’re losing talented teachers in this state and we’re losing them for the wrong reasons because we’re not stepping up and investing in them and the difference that they make.”

– Dr. Lloyd Snow, Superintendent of Sand Springs Public Schools, on cuts to education due to the state budget crisis (Source)

“I don’t know how many people have to die. I don’t know how many people have to be out of nursing homes with no place to go. I don’t know how many people have to go without access to doctors. … The importance of this is grave.”

– Steve Williamson, CEO of Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA), warning proposed Medicaid provider cuts could lead to EMSA rate increases if lawmakers don’t act to raise new revenues (Source)

“More and deeper cuts will follow if the state continues to ignore its school funding responsibilities. With each round of reductions, the cuts will be more painful and closer to the school district’s essential mission.”

-Tulsa World Editorial Board, writing on the continuing fallout of budget cuts at Tulsa Public Schools (Source)

“I was shocked and scared the first time I learned I had a warrant on me. My parents, they were terrified. We never thought any time in our lives we’d see something like this. We didn’t do anything that would be close to this kind of thing, the drug thing.”

-Eh Wah, a Burmese musician who had $53,000 in cash donations seized by Muskogee County Sheriff’s Department in a civil asset forfeiture action that was reversed on Monday (Source)

“We know our providers are operating on an extremely thin margin, and for some, a cut will have devastating effects on their business as well as the clients they serve. DHS’ main mission has been to act as a safety net to the state’s most vulnerable citizens, but what happens when the safety net runs out of money? That is what we are experiencing now.”

-Oklahoma Department of Human Services spokesman Mark Beutler, speaking out state budget cuts that threaten to put home health care providers across the state out of business and force elderly and disabled Oklahomans into nursing homes (Source)

“When will the political will manifest itself and rise up and say, ‘Enough is enough — we’re going to invest in our people, in our families?’ When are going to make a serious attempt to intervene early in people’s lives?”

– Mike Brose, CEO of Mental Health Association Oklahoma, on the state’s persistent underfunding of mental health and substance abuse treatment (Source)