As Oklahoma’s tax debate unfolds, it has been encouraging to hear a rising chorus of influential voices insist that any tax plan must be revenue neutral. Given deep cuts that state agencies have absorbed in recent years and the long-term…
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By:
Paul Shinn
December 29, 2011 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Last week we reported that next year’s revenues are expected to be 7 percent below their levels of six years ago (FY ’07), even though costs are higher due to inflation, population growth, and increased caseloads
Elsewhere, people seem to…
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By:
Paul Shinn
November 21, 2011 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Today we published “An Incomplete Recovery: The State Budget Outlook 2012-2015.” This is the third of our annual series of forecasts for the state budget. Our goals for this project are both to inform leaders and citizens about the state’s…
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By:
David Blatt
December 27, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Earlier this month, we released a brief that provided our projections for state revenue collections for Fiscal Years 2011 through 2014. Last week, the State Board of Equalization certified its official preliminary revenue estimates for FY ’12, along with updated…
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By:
David Blatt
December 15, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Yesterday’s announcement of state General Revenue (GR) collections for the month of November showed that the state continues to recover only slowly and partially from the depths of the downturn. Outgoing State Treasurer Scott Meacham chose to highlight that November…
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By:
David Blatt
October 7, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
This week OK Policy distributed a 4-page memo on the state budget to all candidates for state offices, which we have now released to a broader audience. The memo is intended to offer policymakers a clearer understanding of the budget…
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By:
Paul Shinn
September 15, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Last year at this time, OK Policy began a revenue forecasting project. Our efforts stemmed from the limitations of official revenue forecasting efforts, which are limited to two annual forecasts prepared for the Board of Equalization, issued in December and…
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By:
David Blatt
January 8, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Everyone knew it would be bad. Could we have known it would be this bad? Nearly one year ago, in February of 2009, several months after the national economic recession finally hit Oklahoma, the Board of Equalization certified an official…
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By:
David Blatt
December 8, 2009 // Updated: May 1, 2019
As state leaders struggle with how to manage the enormous budget shortfalls the state faces this year and next, the focus is understandably on decisions that must be made over the coming weeks and months. But while short-term challenges are…
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By:
David Blatt
November 11, 2009 // Updated: May 1, 2019
The latest monthly budget release (PDF) from Treasurer Scott Meacham provided some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that October revenues fell well short of projections, as they have in each month of the current fiscal…
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