“OFRG is committed to improving transparency in government and we want to highlight individuals and groups doing the same,” said OFRG Executive Director Brian Downs.  “Oklahoma taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent and thanks to the efforts of the Oklahoma Impact Team and The Oklahoman, that information is being made public.”

The Oklahoma Impact Team, a project of Griffin Communications’ NEWS 9 (Oklahoma City) and The News On 6 (Tulsa), was created over a year ago to highlight federal stimulus spending in the state and has uncovered projects like the “Sidewalk to Nowhere” in Boynton that later made a list of the worst projects nationwide.  Since then, Oklahoma Impact Team members Alex Cameron, Amy Lester and Jennifer Loren have expanded their scope to include stories on the state budget and other investigations.

Paul Monies and the Oklahoman’s Data Watch team have been doing excellent work delving into the information provided to the public by the state and federal government in order to shine a light on how tax dollars are being spent.  He uncovered problems with stimulus reporting such as funds going to Congressional districts that don’t exist in the state.

“Having an open government only works when there are people willing to look into exactly what is going on,” said Downs.  “What the Impact Team and Paul have done, especially when it comes to tracking federal stimulus dollars, has been extremely beneficial to taxpayers.”

 Photos of the award presentations can be found on OFRG’s Flickr account

That makes SQ 744 the first in a line of dominoes that will result in budget problems for lawmakers and, eventually, taxpayers. You can’t argue that since you only knocked over the first domino, you’re not responsible for the others falling as well. There are consequences to SQ 744 that supporters are trying to pretend don’t exist.

The FY 2012 budget has a billion-dollar hole in it, caused by lawmakers using one-time federal stimulus and Rainy Day funds. That means in order to have just a stand-still budget for FY 2012, the state will have to have revenues exceed estimates by a billion dollars. The first month of the current budget did exceed estimates by 12% or $40-million. But the state would need to see an increase of about 20% in order to have the surplus to cover the FY 2012 hole. Again, that’s simply to have a stand-still budget that doesn’t provide for increases in health insurance and other costs.

Now add to the mix the roughly $375-million cost of the first year phase-in of SQ 744. Supporters of SQ 744 say growth revenue will provide enough money to meet the mandate on education spending plus leave more for other agencies. I haven’t seen any economist predicting that Oklahoma will be bringing in an extra $1.3-billion this year.

The only way for lawmakers to increase education spending in FY 2012 is to take in more money through higher taxes or reduce spending elsewhere in the budget. Those are the dominoes that SQ 744 supporters don’t want you to see. But there is no doubt they are there and the only way to keep them standing is to defeat SQ 744.

KOSU did a story this morning on SQ 744 that included OFRG Executive Director Brian Downs. Yesterday’s episode of Oklahoma Forum on OETA was also on the topic of SQ 744. OFRG Communications Director Peter J. Rudy represented the STOP744 side.

We’re glad to see more and more people becoming educated on SQ 744. There are ways to improve Oklahoma’s education system that do not include decimating other state agencies or raising taxes. We believe that when people learn of the true cost with SQ 744, the more votes we have to defeat it in November.

In Guthrie, the school district was asking for nearly 90-million in bonds for improvements like a new high school, sports fields and gymnasium. It would have raised property taxes by 24% and nearly four out of five voters said “No.”

Norman is the only city in Oklahoma which has to ask citizens to approve rate increases. Two measures were on the ballot, one dealing with trash rates and the other water rates. In each case, the question was actually multiple increases - trash rates would have increased three times in two years and water rates twice. Both failed by an 18-point margin or more.

Enid voters narrowly defeated a $20-million bond proposal for a new events center and other improvements.

Guthrie had the highest turnout of the three races at 38% followed by Enid at 34% and Norman at less than 28%. We’ve railed in the past about low voter turnout deciding important bond measures. While these votes may not have been as low as some of the towns that voted earlier in the year, we’d still like to see more people take an active role in government.

Now that this fee has been ruled unconstitutional, it was a center piece along with the proposed $50 million revenue from the camera system.

Now, what happens next. The state constitution requires a balanced budget. With these two items thrown out, does a special session need to be called to balance the budget?

We don’t think a special session is required. Here’s why:

The health insurance claims tax was supposed to raise $78-million which would have been used to get matching federal dollars for Medicaid. The State Treasurer and State Finance Director have a couple options to replace that money. First, they could take money from cash reserves, much like they did to offset higher mid-year cuts last year, to use as the state match. This money has to be replaced before the end of the fiscal year in June. They could assume that revenues will exceed expectations for the year and count on that money being there to pay back those cash reserves.

Similarly, they could reduce monthly allocations to agencies (two-percent across-the-board should be more than enough) to free up funds for the match. This money could then be given back to agencies through special appropriations passed by the next legislature provided the state continues to see revenues exceed estimates.

It’s that second option that should be used. We argued back when the budget agreement was reached that it relied far too heavily on new revenue and not nearly enough on budget cuts. Had the 3.4% average cut been increased to 5% it would have saved $96-million and there would have been no need for lawmakers to pass this unconstitutional bill.

“Taxpayers of Oklahoma can rejoice with the rejection of the 1% health care claims tax by the state’s highest court.  The six justices in the majority rightly noted that the measure violated the provisions of State Question 640 approved by voters in 1992 which require a super-majority in the Legislature to raise a tax and prohibit any revenue generating bills from being passed in the last five days of session. 

It has been OFRG’s position since the budget agreement was announced that this tax wouldn’t have been needed had lawmakers simply increased the average budget cut from 3.4% to 5% in all state agencies. 

This ruling now sets the precedent that will protect taxpayers in the future from similar taxes disguised as fees.”

Her argument is similar to the one we had back when the law was passed and sent to the Governor: as a revenue-increasing measure, the bill needed to pass with a super majority in each house or else a vote of the people. She also says the bill violates the rule prohibiting revenue increasing bills from passing in the last five days of the legislative session.

This will be a crucial decision by the Supreme Court that will have repercussions far beyond this specific bill. If it’s allowed to go through, then State Question 640 passed by the people in 1992 would lose much of its power. Lawmakers could simply invent new taxes and call them fees in order to get around the will of the people.

The constitutional language of SQ 640 seems to be very clear:

Article V, Section 33

A. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate may propose amendments to revenue bills.

B. No revenue bill shall be passed during the last five days of the session.

C. Any revenue bill originating in the House of Representatives shall not become effective until it has been referred to the people of the state at the next general election held throughout the state and shall become effective and be in force when it has been approved by a majority of the votes cast on the measure at such an election and not otherwise, except as otherwise provided in subsection D of this section.

D. Any revenue bill originating in the House of Representatives may become law without being submitted to a vote of the people of the state if such bill receives the approval of three-fourths of the membership of the House of Representatives and three-fourths of the membership of the Senate and is submitted to the Governor for appropriate action. Any such revenue bill shall not be subject to the emergency measure provision authorized in Section 58 of this Article and shall not become effective and in force until ninety days after it has been approved by the Legislature, and acted upon by the Governor.

We hope that the justices find the law to be as clear on this issue as we do. While it would create a temporary problem for the current state budget, the problem would be much worse for Oklahoma’s taxpayers if the healthcare tax is allowed to go forward.

*Note: On Tuesday, August 24, the State Supreme Court overturned the health insurance claims tax as unconstitutional. To read OFRG’s comment on the ruling, click here.

Contrary to popular belief, the best teachers were not concentrated in schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, nor were the weakest instructors bunched in poor areas. Rather, these teachers were scattered throughout the district. The quality of instruction typically varied far more within a school than between schools.

Although many parents fixate on picking the right school for their child, it matters far more which teacher the child gets. Teachers had three times as much influence on students’ academic development as the school they attend. Yet parents have no access to objective information about individual instructors, and they often have little say in which teacher their child gets.

Many of the factors commonly assumed to be important to teachers’ effectiveness were not. Although teachers are paid more for experience, education and training, none of this had much bearing on whether they improved their students’ performance.

Other studies of the district have found that students’ race, wealth, English proficiency or previous achievement level played little role in whether their teacher was effective.

Not everyone is happy with the report, but U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (pictured below with President Obama) had encouraging words to say. He thinks parents have a right to know if their children’s teachers are effective.

This is a conversation worth having when it comes to educating our children. It’s something that can and should be debated in legislative hearings and perhaps even be a part of the discussion during the upcoming statewide elections.

But it doesn’t change the fact that State Question 744 will devastate Oklahoma’s budget. Even using Professor Hepner’s example of a $3,000 voucher and 10% of students using it, it falls short of covering even the first year’s phase-in of SQ 744 which, under the most recent data, would require an extra $578 per student. Years two and three of the phase-in would still require over a billion dollars which could not be made up with vouchers. It would have to be either budget cuts or tax hikes.

Oklahoma can’t afford State Question 744 with or without vouchers. So before the voucher debate comes to the Legislature, State Question 744 has to be defeated in November.