You get what you pay for

State budget leaves Oklahoma services massively underfunded

After months of wrangling, legislative leaders finally introduced budget bills late on the last Tuesday (May 23) of legislative session, just three days before the deadline to adjourn. This budget appropriates $6.86 billion for FY 2018—almost the same amount as FY 2017 after mid-year cuts and supplemental appropriations. But compared to the budget of eight years ago, this budget is more than 15 percent less when adjusted for inflation, a decrease of about $1.25 billion.

Even as they worked to rush this budget through before adjournment, state leaders did not describe it in glowing terms. House Appropriations and Budget chair Leslie Osborne provided a blunt assessment when presenting the budget Tuesday evening: “These are horrible funding levels. We are massively underfunded in state government.” Governor Fallin said: “This plan keeps our government from shutting down ... unfortunately it leaves many agencies facing cuts for the sixth year in a row.”

David Blatt is Executive Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute. For the rest of this article and more, visit okpolicy.org.