OKPOLICY.ORG
For a second year in a row, the budget approved by Oklahoma lawmakers increases funding significantly from the year before. However, for much of state government, there is still a long way to go before Oklahoma restores funding to where it was before the Great Recession in 2009.
If you want to know how Oklahoma is prioritizing key public services, check out the new edition of our annual Budget Highlights report. The report includes a bullet point summary of the state budget, charts illustrating key aspects of the budget, and tables appropriations for every state agency going back to 2009.
You can view the report on our website here. You can find even more information and analysis about the state budget at our Budget & Taxes Issue Page. Recent articles include Senior Policy Analyst Paul Shinn’s look at Oklahoma’s progress rebuilding state services after years of cuts and Executive Director David Blatt’s study of how lawmakers’ move to increase gross production taxes are fueling the state’s current revenue boom.
For more of OK Policy’s take on this year’s legislative session, see our continuing end-of-session Bill Watch series on the OK Policy Blog.
QUESTION: Apart from line item budgeting which is required of agencies that receive more than $100 million of the appropriation funds, what system(s) of budgeting are the other agencies (e.g. department of commerce, department of Energy and environment, etc.) using?
Agencies are required to submit their budget requests at a program and line-item level of detail, along with a lot of supporting documentation that allows the Office of Management and Enterprise Services to evaluate requests and make recommendations to the governor. However, agencies have a lot of flexibility internally in how they evaluate options and how they decide what to request. They could develop estimates by only looking at incremental improvements, by addressing specific goals, through a zero-based process, or through target-based budgeting.
When actually implenting a budget, all agencies use a line-item budget to manage the budget once adopted. State law requires every agency submit a Budget Work Program that specifies all sources of revenue and all expenditures by line-item for every fund that they control. During the year, actual revenue and expenditures are compared to that budget at the detailed level. Most of the larger ones also track revenue and spending by program, division, or some other level of detail that is between the full agency level and the detailed fund and line-item level.
Good question, thanks much!