Federal Stimulus Information

It’s back to school for OK Policy’s Stimulus update! Our August 2009 issue profiles over $425 million in new federal money available to Oklahoma’s education system.  This update is a quick and easy way to learn about: Why education programs… Read more [More...]

Is spending the easy part? Stimulus transparency is opaque

As the debate about the speed and impact of stimulus spending rages on, Good Jobs First is taking on the less glamorous but equally important task of assessing accountability in state spending of funds from the stimulus bill (more formally,… Read more [More...]

The Art of budget forecasting

We have not yet reached the end of the first month of the new fiscal year but already Treasurer Scott Meacham has publicly predicted that state General Revenue collections will fall far enough short of the forecast to trigger an… Read more [More...]

Dealing with revenue shortfalls–this year and beyond

Last week, State Treasurer Scott Meacham unveiled the the state revenue report for June, 2009. Revenue was below the previous year, for both  the last  month and the fiscal year as a whole, as we reported earlier. It’s natural to… Read more [More...]

Fewer Exceptions – Tobacco tax revenues rise while sales fall

Five years after voters approved a State Question increasing the tax on tobacco, there is good news to report: over the course of the recently completed fiscal year (FY ’09), tobacco sales in Oklahoma declined by 7.2 percent over the… Read more [More...]

Revenue figures: A tale of two half-years

Treasurer Scott Meacham today released revenue collections for the final month of the just-completed fiscal year, FY ’09. As was widely expected, the numbers were dismal: June General Revenue (GR) collections came in 30.1 percent below last year and 26.2… Read more [More...]

Tobacco Taxes

This spreadsheet provides annual information on Oklahoma tobacco taxes since passage of SQ 713 including: Total stamp sales by tribal and non-tribal retailers; Total revenues from tribal and non-tribal sales; Annual allocation of revenues by funding purpose.… Read more [More...]

Making Oklahoma taxes fairer–from our Online Guide

We’re getting closer to launching the OK Policy Online Guide to Oklahoma Budget and Taxes, a comprehensive resource for understanding state and local government finance in Oklahoma. Most of the guide is factual in nature–how we collect tax dollars, how… Read more [More...]

Starving the Beast: Government in lean times

As we’ve discussed in various blog posts and issue briefs, most state agencies received basically flat funding or were dealt budget cuts of 5 to 7 percent for the new fiscal year beginning July 1st, even as inflation leads to… Read more [More...]

Updates from Stimulusland

OK Policy is pleased to launch a new monthly Stimulus Update publication. Each month we will take a quick look at one set of federal stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA) programs. Each issue includes a short review… Read more [More...]