But with those numbers come a lot of caveats. For starters, while revenues exceeded expectations, they were still below the levels in February of 2009. The difference is that the Board of Equalization had much lower expectations for this year.

Secondly, even with the overage and 10% across-the-board reductions, the state had to take another $85-million out of various cash reserve funds in order to make allocations to state agencies. This is on top of the $233-million taken in the six previous months, all of which has to be paid back by the end of June.

And delving deeper into the numbers, we see that oil and gas revenues made the biggest increase. While it’s good to see those revenues coming back up, it is a volatile source of funding that can’t be relied upon. While income taxes did produce nearly $20-million more than expected, it was offset by sales taxes which remain well below predictions.

It’s too early to say Oklahoma has hit bottom and is starting to rebound. That’s why it’s important to continue the effort to save state dollars. Even if revenues are above expectations for the rest of the year, Oklahoma is still in a deep hole.

During the question and answer period on the House Floor, Rep. Paul Wesselhoft (R-Moore) pointed out that right now, lawmakers have no idea how many vehicles Higher Ed has or who is using them. With Fleet Management involved, there will be oversight and rules that higher education must follow.

It’s possible that Higher Ed is currently running its fleet as efficiently as possible and no changes will be needed. But the fact is we don’t know right now and HB 2610 will allow the legislature to see the details of how some of that money is being spent. More importantly, if efficiencies can be found, they will be enacted.

It was during last year’s legislative session that it was discovered that Higher Ed was spending $60-million on travel expenses, more than half of the entire state’s $100-million total. Providing some additional oversight of Higher Education spending is a good idea and can only serve to save state colleges and universities money that can reduce the need for tuition hikes.

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I would be–if I were President Obama, I would just show this chart of what’s been happening and say this is the tapeworm that’s eating at American competitiveness. And I would say that one way or another, we’re going to attack costs, costs, costs, just like they talk about jobs, jobs, jobs in the…(unintelligible). It’s cost, cost, cost on this side. That’s a tough job. I mean, we’re spending maybe $2.3 trillion on health care in the United States, and every one of those dollars is going to somebody and they’re going to yell if that dollar becomes 90 cents or 80 cents. So it take–but I would–I would try to get a unified effort, say this is a national emergency to do something about this. We need the Republicans, we need the Democrats. We’re going to cut off all the kinds of things like the 800,000 special people in Florida or the Cornhusker kickback, as they called it, or the Louisiana Purchase, and we’re going to–we’re going to get rid of the nonsense. We’re just going to focus on costs and we’re not going to dream up 2,000 pages of other things. And I would say, as president, `I’m going to come back to you with something that’s going to do something about this, because we have to do it.’

And that’s an interesting statement because it’s basically what Sen. Coburn has been saying. Let’s scrap the Senate Bill and take the individual components that have bipartisan support and pass those. Buffett said later in the interview that the public has to be behind whatever reform comes out of Congress and they’re not behind this bill. A CNN survey finds that people are opposed to the specific bill in the Senate by a 3-1 margin, yet most people agree that some reforms are needed. If Congress and the President don’t listen to Buffett or Coburn, perhaps they’ll listen to the people.

Did you know… that if you add up the number of school districts in Florida (67), Georgia( 187), Tennessee (140) and Virginia (132), the total (526) still doesn’t equal the number of districts in Oklahoma (531) even though the combined populations of those states is over 42-million while Oklahoma’s is about 3.6-million?

The bill requires that the state’s current Open Books website be upgraded to include all expenditures no matter how small.  It would also make the raw data available for downloading so that anyone can look through and sort the data as they see fit.  Open Books would also become an archive of all past spending so that data from one year to the next can be compared.

“Open Books put Oklahoma at the forefront of state spending transparency, but since then, other states have moved ahead by providing more information,” said Brian Downs, OFRG Executive Director.  “Open Books 2.0 will allow taxpayers to get a better idea of how their money is being spent by the state.”

The passage of HB 3422 comes on the same day that the House passed HB 3253 by Rep. Gus Blackwell (R-Goodwell) which will put all school district spending on the State Department of Education’s website.

“There’s no doubt that stories about school district funds and stimulus dollars being spent in questionable ways is shining a light on the need for more transparency in government,” said Downs.  “Now, more than ever, taxpayers are demanding accountability and transparency and it’s good to see lawmakers are listening.”

It’s encouraging to see the bill pass without a single “No” vote, especially in light of a recent state audit on spending at Skiatook Public Schools. Having the spending posted online will help catch irregular spending, but simply posting the information is not the solution. It does not replace having school board members asking their superintendent tough questions about spending and reviewing the district’s financial information. It does not replace taxpayers getting involved with district spending by attending school board meetings. With information posted online, it will still be up to the public to review all that spending.

But there’s no doubt that opening up school district spending to public scrutiny will be a good thing. It’s the single largest use of tax dollars in the state - more than $4-billion in federal, state and local money. Before the state spends any more money on education, taxpayers deserve to know that their money is being spent properly now. As we’ve seen with Skiatook - and five other districts that are going through special investigative audits as we speak - that’s not necessarily the case.

OFRG would like to see districts take the extra step of posting the data on their own website along with sending it to the State Department of Education. It wouldn’t take that much more time or expense and would provide even more assurance to taxpayers that the district is committed to spending wisely.

Now that it’s passed the House, the bill will move to the Senate where a similar bill, SB 1633 by Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso), is also being considered.

Download audio file (rudy-on-ktok-03012010.mp3)