Quotes of the Day

“They really don’t know what the budget hole is going to be, but we heard figures all the way from $600 million to $1.2 billion yesterday. And those figures, you’re talking real money. And those are state dollars. …Next year is going to be a really tough year, and the year after that appears to be the same.”

– Ed McFall, chairman of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, on discussions of the state’s budget situation over the next few years (Source)

“Lawmakers are feeling pressure to do something about Oklahoma’s mounting teacher shortage, but they haven’t shown any willingness to stop cutting taxes, much less to find new revenue to close our state’s growing budget gap. In this context, it’s not surprising to see excuses pop up for why we don’t need to find the money.”

– OK Policy Policy Director Gene Perry, writing that Oklahoma’s low cost of living doesn’t make up for the state’s abysmally low teacher pay, which is less than 80 percent of the national average (Source)

“I want to do whatever I can to prevent irresponsible decisions like tax cuts when we already have a deficit and a teacher shortage. That’s dangerous.”

-Cyndi Munson, who yesterday won a special election to replace Rep. David Dank in the Oklahoma House (Source)

“Without health care, you really don’t have anything. If you’re sick all the time, you can’t have jobs. We’ve seen a lot of dental problems because there has not been dental, and if you have a big toothache, you’re not going to be able to go to work. You’re not going to be able to apply for a job with half your teeth missing.”

-Angie Batton, a clinic nurse in southeast Oklahoma, which has some of highest preventable disease rates and lowest levels of access to care in the state (Source)

“After five years, we’ve lost about 40 percent of them out of the profession, out of the state.”

-Tony Hutchison, vice chancellor with the State Regents for Higher Education, speaking about Oklahoma’s significant losses of teachers graduating with a bachelor of science of education (Source).

“This was a multisector response to the fact that we have this huge disparity in the city of Tulsa and Tulsa County … that what ZIP code you live in had a great impact on how long you actually live. When you have a 14-year gap, I think everyone found that reprehensible and unacceptable.”

-Bruce Dart, executive director of the Tulsa Health Department, speaking about efforts that have narrowed the life expectancy gap between Tulsa County’s wealthiest and poorest ZIP codes from 13.8 to 10.7 years (Source).

“They didn’t want Indians in that neighborhood. They didn’t want a health authority. ‘Indians leave dirty diapers and trash in the parking lot, and there’s no way we want them in our neighborhood.’ You look at our facility today, and you won’t find anything in Tulsa any prettier or any cleaner or more well-kept.”

– Carmelita Skeeter, CEO of the Indian Health Care Resource Center, describing the opposition her agency faced 16 years ago when it announced its plan to open in the Pearl District. Iron Gate, a soup kitchen and food pantry, is encountering similar opposition to its plans to relocate to the neighborhood. (Source)

“It’s a shame that in a sense a Colombian drug cartel has become a more reliable revenue source for Oklahoma law enforcement than our state Legislature.”

– Brady Henderson, legal affairs director for the ACLU, on recent controversy surrounding civil asset forfeiture. Brady says some law enforcement departments are reluctant to end the practice because they rely on seized money and goods for funding. (Source)

“The county jail is just this symptom of the problem. It’s not the solution. You can debate, ‘Where do you want people to go when their addiction gets them in trouble, when their mental health gets them in trouble?’ But the focus should be — how are you going to treat people’s mental illnesses and addictions? And if you’re not willing to make those investments, you can be sure your criminal justice system is going to be flooded, and you spend money on the back end.” 

– Oklahoma City councilman Ed Shadid, on the Oklahoma City county jail’s difficulty contending with high volumes of inmates with mental health and substance abuse issues (Source)

“You can’t beat the disability out of a kid. These are the most fragile, innocent students in our society. If we turn our backs on them, that says a lot about our society.”

– Attorney George McCaffrey, a special education attorney who represents parents and children, on data showing that students with disabilities receive corporal punishment at higher rates than their peers (Source)