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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. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that despite a record outbreak, Oklahoma’s efforts to fight West Nile virus have been limited due to federal funding cuts. Oklahoma’s Business Conditions Index took an upward turn in August, continuing to indicate growth in the coming months. A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that per pupil spending in Oklahoma has dropped more than 20 percent since 2008. This was the third largest percentage decrease in the nation, behind only Arizona and Alabama.
Several Oklahoma County community health leaders are working on a plan to coordinate volunteer specialist care for the uninsured. Relatives and friends of inmates soon will be charged to deposit money into the inmates’ prison accounts. A special meeting of the Oklahoma City Council will examine how lessons learned in Fort Worth and Charlotte, N.C. can help with long-term planning in the metro.
The Columbia Journalism Review profiled how This Land Press is defying news-startup orthodoxy. In light of the conflict over Sardis Lake, This Land Press examined the history of water management in Oklahoma.
The Number of the Day is the percentage of Oklahoma voters who think that the state Legislature is not doing enough to fund public schools. In today’s Policy Note, the National Women’s Law Center explains why closing the wage gap between men and women requires increasing the minimum wage.
In The News
West Nile virus harder to combat in Oklahoma due to funding cuts
By 1951, the mosquito-borne illness malaria was considered by public health officials to have been eliminated in the United States. And after malaria was eliminated, so were the offices that were set up to monitor and control the disease, known as mosquito control districts. “And as we abandoned those, then we set ourselves up for the situation where a mosquito-borne disease could spread very rapidly across the country and cause thousands of cases of illness,” said Kristy Bradley, the state epidemiologist at the state Health Department. Cut to 1999. West Nile virus entered the United States and has continued to grow, with Oklahoma and the rest of the nation set to break records of reported West Nile virus disease and deaths. And because of some unfortunately timed federal grant funding cuts, the state Health Department is limited in how much data it has on where the mosquitoes causing West Nile virus are and how much money it can give out to cities to fight the virus.
State economic index points to growth
A leading economic indicator for Oklahoma took an upward turn in August, continuing to indicate growth in the coming months. After dropping three straight months, the state’s Business Conditions Index changed course and advanced to 53.6 last month from July’s 52.7 reading, economists at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., announced Tuesday. The index, taken from a survey of businesses, is derived from new orders, production or sales, employment, inventories and delivery lead time. A number greater than 50 signals expansion in the next three to six months, and a number less than 50 points to economic contraction. “Durable and nondurable goods manufacturers in the state, especially those linked to energy, continue to experience healthy growth,” said Ernie Goss, director of Creighton’s Economic Forecasting Group, in written comments. He noted that Oklahoma and North Dakota – two energy-heavy states – are among the strongest in the survey’s nine-state Mid-America region.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma’s per pupil spending has plummeted
Oklahoma’s economy has performed relatively well over the course of the Great Recession, compared to the nation as a whole. We’ve had lower unemployment numbers and decent income growth. Yet you wouldn’t know it to look at the state of school funding. A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that per pupil spending in Oklahoma has dropped more than 20 percent since FY 2008. This was the third largest percentage decrease in the nation, behind only Arizona and Alabama. In FY 2013, Oklahoma is spending $706 less per student in inflation-adjusted dollars than we did in FY 2008.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Health leaders envision plan to help Oklahoma County’s uninsured
Let’s say there’s a man who needs a colonoscopy. Both of his parents died of colon cancer. He’s employed but uninsured. And he knows his bill will probably be more than $1,000. What’s he going to do? “Put yourself in that place — you’re making $10 an hour, you’re 50 years old and you need a $1,000 test, what are you going to do? Nothing,” said Lou Carmichael, the CEO of Variety Care. “You’re just going to wait, even though your doctor knows it’s probably indicated because of your family history.” Several Oklahoma County community health leaders have spent the past year drafting a master plan on how to better serve people like this hypothetical man. The group, known as the Commission to Transform the Health Care Safety Net in Oklahoma County, has proposed the creation of a network that would serve as a “single robust system for receiving, managing and distributing requests for donated specialty care,” according to the commission’s report.
Fees coming for inmate account deposits
Relatives and friends of inmates soon will be charged to deposit money into the inmates’ prison accounts. By Oct. 1, the Department of Corrections will begin using two private companies to process the funds. The fees vary depending on the transaction method, such as money order, credit card or online transfer and amount. In the past, the agency had handled inmate banking internally and required the use of a money order. The new system will allow those depositing the funds more options to make the payments, Tina Hicks, Department of Corrections administrator of contracts and acquisitions, said last week. The new system will allow relatives to walk into certain locations, such as Ace Cash Express or Walmart, to make a payment. Inmates use the funds for a variety of items, ranging from food to clothing and fans.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma City Council to hold special meeting to study Fort Worth, Charlotte redevelopment
Fort Worth and Charlotte, N.C., are a few years ahead of Oklahoma City with urban redevelopment projects similar to what’s going on here. A special meeting of the Oklahoma City Council this month will be an opportunity for local civic leaders to hear about how lessons learned in those cities can help with long-term planning in the metro. The special meeting has its genesis in Oklahoma City Councilman David Greenwell’s trip to Fort Worth in April. The Urban Land Institute organized the trip, which highlighted the ongoing urban redevelopment projects in town. Greenwell said he was impressed by what he learned and thought it presented an opportunity for his colleagues to learn what to expect, and things that worked and didn’t work in Fort Worth.
This Land Press is defying news startup orthodoxy
Across the street from a Fastenal hardware store in the shadow of Tulsa’s aging art-deco skyline, the staff of what is perhaps the best for-profit local journalism startup in the country has yet to reinvent the craft. Eleven full-time editorial employees sit at desks scattered across the rooms of a bright red house with Astroturf carpeting, telling stories about their community. As This Land Press founder and editor Michael Mason would argue, if this sounds unremarkable, it’s because journalism’s vision of its own future has become overly complicated. In its short existence—one year as a passion project and another 18 months as a venture-capital-backed multimedia company—This Land has consistently produced the kinds of in-depth features and investigations that much of the industry is looking to nonprofit models to sustain.
Read more from the Columbia Journalism Review.
Troubled Waters, Part 1
Like several other big reservoirs in Southeastern Oklahoma, Sardis is a federal project, and multiple far-away cities hope to dip a straw into it. In June 2010, over a year before releasing its 50-year Comprehensive Water Plan, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board sold “storage rights” to 90 percent of the Sardis water to Oklahoma City, which plans to build a pipeline and pipe Sardis water 200 miles and 600 feet uphill. The move triggered a lawsuit from the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations and a threat of litigation from local activists. Understanding what’s at stake in the water wars—which will ultimately reach well beyond Lake Sardis—requires taking a look not just at Oklahoma’s unique climate and landscape, but its equally unique history. Water disputes are common across the West, ever more so as populations grow and the climate becomes more extreme, but Oklahoma’s stand-offs are unlike the rest, because here the problem is not—or not yet—scarcity.
Read more from This Land Press.
Quote of the Day
Put yourself in that place — you’re making $10 an hour, you’re 50 years old and you need a $1,000 test, what are you going to do? Nothing. You’re just going to wait, even though your doctor knows it’s probably indicated because of your family history.
–Lou Carmichael, the CEO of Variety Care
Number of the Day
61 percent
Percentage of Oklahoma voters who think that the state Legislature is not doing enough to fund public schools
Source: Tulsa World via Oklahoma Policy Institute
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Fair Pay for Women Requires Increasing the Minimum Wage and Tipped Minimum Wage
Millions of workers – mostly women – struggle to make ends meet on minimum wage earnings. The Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 6211/S. 3453) would gradually raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.80 per hour, increase the tipped minimum cash wage from $2.13 per hour to 70 percent of the minimum wage, and index the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. Increasing the minimum wage and tipped minimum wage are key steps toward fair pay for women. Women represent nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers. A woman working full time, year round at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour earns just $14,500 – more than $3,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. The federal minimum cash wage for tipped workers is $2.13 per hour. Women are nearly two-thirds of workers in tipped occupations. Raising the minimum wage to $9.80 per hour would boost earnings for more than 28 million workers, nearly 55 percent of them women, and help close the wage gap.
Read more from the National Women’s Law Center.
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This news about WNV is pretty scary stuff, particularly in the wake of recent information about impending climate change toward abnormal increasing temperatures in more areas. Stay informed; stay healthy!