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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Highlights: For the fiscal year that began on July 1, 2024 (FY 2025), Oklahoma’s state budget is $12.2 billion. In nominal dollars, this year’s budget of $12.2 billion is the largest in state history. However, in real dollar value, our budget has lost a lot of its buying power when adjusted for inflation and population growth. [Aanahita Ervin / OK Policy]
Zoning and Affordable Housing Presentation – Oklahoma House Interim Study (video): OK Policy’s Research Director Anthony Flores and Senior Policy Analyst Sabine Brown shared how zoning reform is a key step to increasing housing in Oklahoma, especially as the need for more affordable housing continues to grow. Their comments were presented during an Oct. 2, 2024, interim study in the Oklahoma House of Representatives about zoning issues in Oklahoma. [OK Policy on YouTube] | [Transcript and Slides]
Courts should be last resort when addressing student truancy, absenteeism (Guest Article): A new report from the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice finds that the best way to address chronic absenteeism is for schools to work together with parents, students, and community partners, rather than rely on punitive measures. [David Blatt / Oklahoma Appleseed]
Lawmakers study state’s felony murder statute (Capitol Update): The lengthy study on Oklahoma’s felony murder statute showed that our felony murder statute is not an outlier among the states. But, as witnesses pointed out in the hearing, it is fertile ground for what many would consider entirely legal but horribly unjust results. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
OK Policy in the News
The Chasm Between Oklahoma and Connecticut: The divergence between Connecticut and Oklahoma is an extreme example of what’s occurring across the country as Republican states cut taxes and services and create environments where residents are beholden to the policy whims of corporations, interest groups, and wealthy donors, all who have a vested interest in low taxes and limited social spending. [The American Prospect]
Weekly What’s That
Oklahoma’s Constitution requires that the state’s annual budget be balanced.
The balanced budget requirement is accomplished by limiting appropriations for seven funds, of which the General Revenue Fund is by far the largest, to no more than 95 percent of certified revenue estimates for the upcoming year. This allows for a 5 percent cushion in case of a revenue shortfall. If General Revenue collections fall below 95 percent of the certified estimate, the Director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services declares a revenue failure and reduces funds going to agencies by however much is necessary to bring spending into balance with revenue collections. If General Revenue Fund revenue exceeds the 95 percent level, the 5 percent cushion flows into the Cash Flow Reserve Fund and can be appropriated in the future. If General Revenue collections exceed 100 percent of the certified amount, the surplus flows into the Constitutional Reserve Fund, also known as the Rainy Day Fund.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“By and large, we do end up hitting a wall when we try to find who the ultimate funders are behind most dark money groups… Sometimes there are several different layers of dark money groups that network and give to each other and funnel money between each other.”
– Anna Massoglia of OpenSecrets, one of the leading reporters on dark money in elections said, speaking to the Tulsa World as part of its series on the use of dark money in state political races. [Tulsa World]
Editorial of the Week
Editorial: Well-informed voting means knowing dark money tactics
No other term aptly describes the cloaked complexity powerful people are abusing to skew elections other than “dark money.” By creating more campaign misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric, it’s worsening an already cynical electorate.
Voters are not powerless, but more education is needed on how to judge the origin and truthfulness of information.
Numbers of the Week
- 0.0001% – A study of the 2016 general election found 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution out of the 23.5 million votes cast in the study’s geographical areas. In other words, even suspected — not proven — noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast. [Brennan Center for Justice]
- 6th – Data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey show that Oklahoma’s poverty rate was 15.9 percent, which was the nation’s sixth highest rate. [Census Bureau via OK Policy]
- $496.6 million – Immigrants represent a 12.6% share of all entrepreneurs in Oklahoma, generating a total business income of $496.6 million annually. [American Immigration Council]
- 5.7% – Apartment rents in the Tulsa metro have risen 5.7% year over year and tops the list of cities with fastest rent change during that period. Meanwhile, Austin, Texas, saw the nation’s sharpest decline, with prices dropping 7.2% in the last 12 months. The Austin metro is significant for permitting new homes at the fastest pace of any large metro in the country, signaling the important role new supply plays in managing long-term affordability. [Apartment List]
- 86% – White households own 86% of the nation’s wealth, with the top 10% of white households owning 61% of all U.S. wealth. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]
What We’re Reading
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Eight states to vote on amendments to ban noncitizen voting: Nationwide, state law already prevents noncitizens from voting in state and local elections. But that isn’t stopping several states from putting bans on the ballot anyway this November. Voters in eight states—Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin—will vote on constitutional amendments that, if successful, will add language to their state constitutions explicitly banning noncitizens from voting. Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. [Route Fifty]
- From OK Policy: Fact Sheet, SQ 834: Citizenship Requirement for Voting Amendment
- The Chasm Between Oklahoma and Connecticut: The divergence between Connecticut and Oklahoma is an extreme example of what’s occurring across the country as Republican states cut taxes and services and create environments where residents are beholden to the policy whims of corporations, interest groups, and wealthy donors, all who have a vested interest in low taxes and limited social spending. [The American Prospect]
- The U.S. benefits from immigration but policy reforms needed to maximize gains: Immigration has been a source of strength for the U.S. economy and has great potential to boost it even more, but the current U.S. immigration policy regime squanders too many of its potential benefits by depriving immigrants of their full rights as workers and granting employers too much power to manipulate the system. It is crystal clear that immigration expands U.S. gross domestic product and is good for growth. And immigration overall has led to better, not worse, wages and work opportunities for U.S.-born workers. [Economic Policy Institute]
- How Americans Voted Their Way Into a Housing Crisis: Jerusalem Demsas has argued that lawmakers should address housing unaffordability by focusing on a severe shortage of homes. Her new book “On The Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy” is a collection of reported essays that explores the role that democratic structures play in perpetuating a housing shortage. She makes the case that solutions to the housing crisis will have to come from states, not cities. [Bloomberg]
- Impact Of Donald Trump’s Tax Proposals by Income Group: Former President Donald Trump has proposed a wide variety of tax policy changes. Taken together, these proposals would, on average, lead to a tax cut for the richest 5 percent of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups. If these proposals were in effect in 2026, the richest 1 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $36,300 and the next richest 4 percent would receive an average tax cut of about $7,200. All other groups would see a tax increase with the hike on the middle 20 percent at about $1,500 and the increase on the lowest-income 20 percent of Americans at about $800. [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy]
