Quotes of the Day

“After years of these cuts, Oklahoma schools have no good options to keep fulfilling their mission unless state leaders come up with new revenues for education.” 

– Oklahoma Policy Institute Policy Director Gene Perry, on Oklahoma City Public Schools’ decision to cut more than 200 classroom teaching positions (Source)

“Oklahoma absolutely is not doing justice for the thousands of men and women who suffer from mental illness but wind up behind bars, either in local jails or the state prison system, because the state lacks the sort of community-based treatment that can help keep them from being incarcerated.”

–The Oklahoman Editorial Board (Source)

“For this second revenue failure, we have strategically targeted reductions to program budgets which will minimize the impact on our most vulnerable clients. If there is another revenue failure before the end of the year, however, the direct impact on our clients will undoubtedly be much more significant.”

-DHS Director Ed Lake, whose agency is dealing with $43.5 million in mid-year cuts (Source)

“We are paying the price for decades of inaction. That’s why I think ultimately we are where we are. People have been sending out the warning and saying, ‘The day will come when it’s going to hit a critical mass.’ And we are at a point now where our criminal justice system cannot handle those that are mentally ill, and we don’t have the appropriate therapeutic beds and facilities to deal with those who are coming into the criminal justice system at a rate that is just completely overwhelming.”

-Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater, speaking about how Oklahoma spends among the least in the nation on its mental health system, despite having some of the highest rates of mental illness and substance abuse in the United States (Source)

“We’re trying to put people that have made mistakes in the past into an honorable place of work. We want to get them into a career and not just a job. We want to find people that have a passion to make people happy and we want to be successful.”

– Chett Abramson, chief operating officer for 21C Hotels, a company that hires ex-felons with professional certifications acquired through The Employment and Education Ministry (Source)

“We can’t strike. What are we going to do, wheel our clients to the Capitol doors and walk away? I don’t even know how to fight this. We have no recourse.”

– Mary Ogle, Executive Director of A New Leaf, an agency that provides residential and employment services for 239 clients with disabilities. A 3 percent cut in state aid to A New Leaf means $160,000 less per year (Source)

“It bears repeating that the most responsible way out of this is by adding stable, recurring revenues into the next budget as the governor proposed and is actively discussing with Legislature.”

-Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger, speaking on General Revenue Fund collections that were 18 percent below projections in February (Source)

“Our overall impression is that extensive rewriting is required for these standards to effectively guide classroom instruction, provide a suitable foundation for assessment, and to adequately support students’ preparation for post-secondary work (“college readiness”). We feel that they are inferior in several ways to the standards of the best states.”

-Dr. Lawrence Gray of the University of Minnesota, evaluating Oklahoma’s new math standards (Source)

“I’m not trying to set off a panic, but I can’t sit there and go a couple of years and then all of a sudden spring (the program ending) out. If we continue down this road, that’s going to be a reality we’re going to have to deal with.”

-Nico Gomez, CEO of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, who said if state agencies continue to see deep budget cuts, there might not be enough money to support Oklahoma’s Medicaid program, eliminating health care for 1 million Oklahomans (Source).

“With all of these budget shortfalls, it is the poor people who end up being hurt the most. It seems to me they have very few champions. Whether it’s mental health, human services, education – the people punished most are those that can least afford it.”

– Sen. Earl Garrison (D-Muskogee), on proposed legislation that would eliminate eligibility for very low-income parents on Medicaid (Source)