OKPOLICY.ORG
By Michael Cross
Lawmakers are looking at less money to spend in upcoming budget negotiations.
A shortfall of more than $188 million was announced Tuesday.
The State Equalization Board approved a budget of nearly seven billion dollars for the 2015 year which includes a drop of 2.6% from last year.
David Blatt with the left-leaning Oklahoma Policy Institute says this means cuts to agencies which are already facing tough decisions.
“The legislature’s going to have be open to some creative ideas whether it’s curbing tax breaks whether it’s accepting federal funds to expand health care coverage.”
Governor Fallin says despite the shortfall she still strongly supports cutting the top income tax from 5.25% to 5%.
“As you’ve seen in the budget that we’ve put forth just cutting 1% of our spending in our state, so we think that’s manageable and doable”
State finance officials say the shortfall might be the result of bad projections of corporate income tax collections which came in lower than estimated.
http://kosu.org/2014/02/gov-still-support-tax-cut-despite-shortfall/
