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In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. E-mail your suggestions for In The Know items to gperry@okpolicy.org. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that Oklahoma ranked 12th in cuts to higher education funding last year. i2E CEO Tom Walker writes in NewsOK that we aren’t investing enough in research, education and infrastructure needed to compete in a global economy. Oklahoma tribal leaders urged more federal support for Indian education efforts at a round-table discussion convened by the Obama administration. Oklahoma City Public Schools will more than double the number of teachers coming from the national Teach for America program next school year.
Steve Fair, a well-known conservative activist and Republican Party County Chair, says Oklahoma should keep the income tax intact. The Tulsa World writes that a bill to ax the income would spell disaster. Find more materials on the income tax debate at our tax reform information page.
The abortion rate in Oklahoma remains low compared with the national average and held relatively steady throughout the past decade. An Oklahoma bill on how evolution and global warming can be discussed in schools is similar to a Louisiana bill that was opposed by every scientific society that took a position on it. OKC as state officials are looking into developing a multi-million dollar incentive package for Boeing, even though the company has already announced they are moving the jobs here and is already building a 320,000-square-foot facility to house them.
Oklahoma State University is hosting the first annual grandparenting workshop, titled “Linking Gerontology and Geriatrics – Grandparent Rearing Grandchildren: Expectations and Experience.” Senators Coburn and Inhofe expressed support for President Obama’s nomination of OKC judge Robert E. Bacharach for a position on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Oklahoma Tax Commission will issue debit cards instead of paper refund checks to taxpayers who choose not to have a direct deposit. A fee of $1.50 per month will be deducted from the refund amount after 60 days of inactivity and go to a private vendor.
Rep. Mike Reynolds is filing legislation to disallow lobbyists from purchasing meals for lawmakers at the Oklahoma Capitol. The Number of the Day is the number of jobs lost in state and local government in Oklahoma over 2010. In today’s Policy Note, The Century Foundation shares a series of graphs that bust the myths about food stamps.
In The News
Oklahoma ranked 12th in state funding cuts to higher education
Oklahoma ranked 12th in cuts to higher education funding last year, according a list assembled by the Associated Press. The funding has declined because of a slow recession recovery and the end of federal stimulus money, according to the annual Grapevine study, prepared by the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University. When federal stimulus money is excluded, state funding for higher education declined 9.6 percent from FY 2011 to FY 2012 in Oklahoma, the AP reported. State funding for higher education declined the most in New Hampshire, 41.3 percent, during that time period. Montana increased state funding for higher ed. the most, 17.2 percent. The funding reductions, seen across nearly every state, have resulted in larger class sizes and fewer course offerings at many universities and come as enrollment continues to rise, the AP’s Christine Armario reported.
Read more from StateImpact Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s competitive advantage: the School of Science and Math
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s recent study, Competitiveness and Innovation Capacity of the United States, identifies things we need to do to boost our country’s ability to innovate. Innovation is the path to wage and job growth, international competitiveness and long-term economic expansion. However, there is significant concern that, as a nation, we simply aren’t investing enough in the scientific and technological building blocks — research, education and infrastructure — that form the bedrock of an innovation economy. Lately, we’ve been writing about the Oklahoma School of Science and Math (OSSM) — the amazing, tuition-free Oklahoma original that every year prepares more than 140 of our state’s brightest and most highly motivated high school juniors and seniors to excel in technical disciplines. We should be increasing our investment in OSSM, not cutting back.
Oklahoma tribal leaders, White House officials discuss funds for Indian education
State tribal and community leaders urged more federal support for Indian education efforts Monday at a round-table discussion led by White House official William Mendoza. About 100 people attended the discussion at the Embassy Suites Conference Center in Norman. It was the second of four events being held across Western states as part of the initiative’s partnership with the U.S. Departments of Education and Interior. Gene Pekah, representing the Comanche Nation College in Lawton, urged support of tribal colleges that he said better fit the needs of American Indian students than traditional colleges, especially in terms of preserving their languages, history and culture. Statistics show that American Indian students are less likely to graduate high school or continue to college than white students, he said. “It’s not a matter of intelligence. It’s a matter of meeting their needs,” Pekah said.
Oklahoma City Public Schools to accept more Teach for America teachers
Oklahoma City Public Schools will more than double the number of teachers coming from the national Teach for America program next school year. Teach for America recruits top college graduates from across the nation from a variety of professions, gives them a crash course in teaching over the summer and then places the teachers for two years in some of the nation’s toughest inner-city school districts. Oklahoma City schools began the program in the 2011-12 school year with 54 of the first-year teachers. Two dropped out of the program before fall semester ended. The Oklahoma City School Board approved hiring another 70 of the teachers for the 2012-13 school year for an additional cost of $280,000. Lance Tackett, executive director of Oklahoma’s Teach for America, said that the district pays only a fraction of the $2.4 million needed to support the 122 teachers in the school district. The rest of the support comes from private donors who believe in the Teach for America program.
Steve Fair: Leave income tax intact!
Several Republican legislators are planning to introduce bills in the next session to phase out the state income tax over the next decade. They claim eliminating the state income tax would help recruit jobs and industry to Oklahoma, but before elimination of the state income tax happens, it should be carefully vetted. For example, currently the teacher’s pension system, the state’s largest system, gets five (5) percent of the state income tax. If the income tax is eliminated, how will the teacher’s system get funded? That is something that has not been addressed. … But it’s not the phasing out of the state income tax that worries me; it’s how the legislature will deal with the possible loss of revenue. Will they hide taxes and fees or will they cut government in direct proportion to the loss of revenue.
Read more from Fair and Biased.
See also: Bill to ax income tax would spell disaster from The Tulsa World; Tax Reform Information from Oklahoma Policy Institute
Abortion rate in Oklahoma remains low
The abortion rate in Oklahoma remains low compared with the national average and held relatively steady throughout the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 Statistical Abstract. The latest comparative data available from the bureau ranges from 2000 to 2008 and reveals Oklahoma’s abortion rate changed little during that time. In 2000, the state’s abortion rate was 10.1 per 1,000 women. The rate dropped to 9.7 in 2005 before climbing again to 9.9 per 1,000 women in 2008. The census data shows Oklahoma’s abortion rate per 1,000 women in 2008 was the 14th lowest in the U.S. Wyoming, with a rate of 0.9 per 1,000 women, ranked the lowest throughout the past decade.
A ‘critique’ of evolution proposed in Oklahoma
If it seems like we keep hearing about the fight over teaching evolution in schools and teaching creationism, we do. It comes up like clockwork, despite the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Oklahoma is the latest state to breach the subject, but the language of the proposed law is different, even if, as critics suspect, the goal is the same. According to the National Center for Science Education, Oklahoma Senate Bill 1742 is the sixth anti-evolution bill introduced in 2012, following bills in New Hampshire, Missouri and Indiana. The model for the bill, which is stated explicitly in it, is the Louisiana Science Education Act, which was passed in 2008, and is part of so-called “academic freedom” laws. Louisiana’s bill was opposed by every scientific society that took a position on it. Oklahoma’s bill would cover discussion of evolution, the origin of life, global warming, and human cloning.
Read more from The Wall Street Journal.
OKC and state officials want to pay incentives after Boeing has already agreed to move jobs
Oklahoma City officials are likely to consider by next fall an incentives package to Boeing for an anticipated 800 to 900 jobs being relocated from Wichita, Kan. Earlier action is expected for an incentives package involving 550 Boeing jobs already coming to OKC from Long Beach, Calif. In March, the city’s Economic Development Trust will likely receive Boeing’s application for the second part of that incentives package. Boeing announced Jan. 4 that it will close its Wichita facility, which employs about 2,160 workers, and shift many of those positions to Oklahoma City and San Antonio. In a media release, Boeing indicated its contracts in Wichita have matured, programs have come to a close and that site was not likely to maintain and win new business. The city already has given the company $1.5 million through its strategic investment program when Boeing brought in 232 new jobs last year. Boeing almost has filled its current Oklahoma City facility, and is working on a 320,000-square-foot facility next door as part of its second phase, which is expected to open in April.
Read more from the OK Gazette.
Upcoming event: 2012 grandparenting workshop at OSU
Oklahoma State University, a consortium partner of the Oklahoma Geriatrics Education Center (OKGEC), is hosting the first annual grandparenting workshop, titled “Linking Gerontology and Geriatrics – Grandparent Rearing Grandchildren: Expectations and Experience” on February 18, 2012. The workshop will: (a) identify the links between Gerontology and Geriatrics; and (b) apply evidence-based information to enhance the best practices or fill professional practice gaps of healthcare & other professionals working with older adults. The population growth of older adults in Oklahoma is out-pacing the number of health care and other professionals trained in Gerontology and Geriatrics. The workshop will be in Stillwater on February 18, 2012.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Oklahoma magistrate judge Robert E. Bacharach nominated for federal appeals court
President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Robert E. Bacharach, a federal magistrate judge in Oklahoma City, for a position on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, ending for now a long-running White House effort to replace Robert H. Henry on the Denver-based court. Bacharach, a Mississippi native, has been a U.S. magistrate judge since 1999 for the Western District of Oklahoma and has handled nearly 3,000 criminal and civil matters, according to the White House. It appeared Monday that Bacharach might clear an initial hurdle toward confirmation — agreement from his home-state senators for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing for him. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, praised the selection. “I like the guy,” Inhofe said. “I told him that it’s not very often the White House and I agree on anything.” A spokeswoman for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, said Monday that Coburn wanted to review the full background report from the FBI and Judiciary Committee. But she said the senator believes Bacharach “has many excellent credentials and comes highly recommended from lawyers and judges in Oklahoma.”
Oklahoma won’t issue paper tax refund checks, only debit cards
The Oklahoma Tax Commission will no longer issue paper refund checks. Instead, the Tax Commission will issue refunds on debit cards if the taxpayer chooses not to have a refund deposited directly into a checking or savings account, said Paula Ross, a spokeswoman for the commission. “Cardholders with proper identification can simply present their card at the MasterCard member bank or credit union teller window and request a withdrawal of funds,” Ross said. Last year, the agency deposited 622,788 refunds directly and issued 477,240 paper checks for refunds, she said. House Bill 1086, passed last session, provides that payments from the state treasury be issued electronically. A fee of $1.50 per month will deducted from the refund amount after 60 days of inactivity on the debit card, according to the Tax Commission. If the card is used periodically, no fee will be assessed, Ross said. The vendor administering the program – Affiliated Computer Service – will keep the fee, she said, adding that Affiliated Computer Service offered the lowest fee.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Reynolds to file legislation ending lobbyist meals at Capitol
In response to a recent action by the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, state Rep. Mike Reynolds announced today that he will file legislation to ensure lobbyists are not allowed to purchase meals for lawmakers at the Oklahoma Capitol. I know the public already disapproves of lobbyist influence at the Capitol, and I am certain they do not want lobbyists to be allowed to purchase even more meals for legislators,” said Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City. “There’s no justifiable reason for a lobbyist to buy our meals.” By a narrow 3-2 margin, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission recently approved a proposed rule that would allow lobbyists to provide lunch or dinner for a group of legislators at the Capitol building. The rule was passed in spite of the fact that lobbyists are forbidden by law from giving campaign contributions at the Capitol building. The exemption would be allowed only once per year while the Legislature is in session and the meal would have to be provided at the Capitol. In addition, under the proposed rule, lobbyists would not have to identify lawmakers receiving the meals.
Read more from The Shawnee News-Star.
Quote of the Day
As a nation, we simply aren’t investing enough in the scientific and technological building blocks — research, education and infrastructure — that form the bedrock of an innovation economy.
–Tom Walker, the CEO of i2E, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that mentors many of Oklahoma’s technology-based startup companies.
Number of the Day
8,600
Number of jobs lost in state and local government in Oklahoma over 2010.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Graph of the day: Busting the myths about food stamps
Last week I commented on a terrific graph published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which refuted presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s false claim that the majority of federal funding for poverty prevention programs like Medicaid and food stamps (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is wasted on “massive overhead,” leaving few dollars for the intended beneficiaries. In fact, the CBPP found that the administrative expenses for these and other social programs range from less than 1 percent to just 8 percent of total costs, hardly the bureaucratic bloodsucking Romney claimed. But Romney is far from alone in his grandiose and off the mark allegations.
Read more from The Century Foundation.
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