Quotes of the Day

“Given the substantial volume of missing, unreadable, and inaccurate records we cannot determine an accurate amount of funds that have either been misappropriated or are the result of erroneous and undetected accounting errors during the 2007-2012 time periods.”

-From an audit report of the Tulsa County Jail by the State Auditor and Inspector’s Office (Source)

“A third consecutive month of rising gross production collections is beginning to look like a positive trend. If oil and gas prices continue to rise, we anticipate increased economic activity with added oil-field jobs, which should spur improvements in other state revenue sources including sales and income.”

-State Treasurer Ken Miller (Source)

“In its drive to cut taxes at all costs, the Oklahoma Legislature has left public schools inadequately funded. As a result, we have children attending school four days a week and quality teachers migrating to other states. While state leaders were busy getting report cards for the schools, they were missing the mark on their own duties to financially underwrite education.”

Source: Tulsa World Editorial Board

“There’s really no such thing as a Republican pothole or a Democratic bridge. It’s an issue that brings the parties together.”

– Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, on why raising the gas tax and earmarking the revenues for transportation can be a bipartisan effort (Source)

“We recognize that this is one of the largest requests that will be brought to you this year, but the need is great.”

– State Superintendent of Schools Joy Hofmeister, presenting a $2.4 billion budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, a $221 million increase over the prior year (Source)

“It’s like magic every day when I wake up and see everything. Now that I have a place to operate from, I need to get to work and get to doing some things for myself. I used to get up and go to work every day. I had kids and a (wife). I didn’t expect to have a chance. After everything slipped away, and I realized it had slipped away, I didn’t know how I was going to get back to this point.”

-John Young, who recently moved into an apartment building run by Mental Health Association Oklahoma after four years of being homeless (Source)

“This law was written on the premise that taxes would be cut based on increasing revenues. Nothing could be further from the truth. Right now we have a defective statute that reduces taxes based on comparing estimates from different points in time. It does not reflect what is actually occurring in the state’s revenue streams.”

-Oklahoma State Auditor Gary Jones, urging legislators to repeal the income tax trigger that could cut the top tax rate from 5 percent to 4.85 percent (Source)

“For those who say that we don’t have a revenue problem, I will say this, ‘You don’t have to say it with words because your actions are showing it.’ If you have to use a half a billion dollars every single year in your budget to spend more than your recurring revenues will allow, that shows a revenue problem.”

-State Treasurer Ken Miller, on the revenue shortfall for next year (Source)

“We cannot afford another trigger, because that would hit from $90 million to $140 million taken out of the budget when we’re already strained. Can you imagine what would happen if the (Board of Equalization) said we had the amount of money needed for the second trigger to catch in? School districts would have to shut down in April if we make them another cut.”

-State Sen. Ron Sharp (R-Shawnee), explaining the need to modify an income tax cut trigger that could go into effect in 2018 (Source)

“State officials cannot bank on oil returning to its 2014, $100-per-barrel peaks, even though the financial line graphs are beginning to turn upward. Nor can it rely on one-time cuts to fix what has become a chronic revenue crisis. There will be difficult choices this year, and they cannot all be in the form of agency cuts. Legislators must address the revenue side and eliminate every incentive that hasn’t produced a quantifiable benefit.”

-The Journal Record Editorial Board (Source)