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Final Budget Votes Coming on Last Day of Session

The state budget will come down to the wire.

Final votes on the $6.9 billion dollar budget bill will come Friday, the last day of session, in the House. A Senate proposal to put a $1.50 per pack fee on cigarettes, which would generate $257.8 million, will also be voted on.

Roughly $95 million of the revenue lawmakers are counting on for fiscal year 2018 will come from a tax increase on horizontal oil and gas wells drilled between 2011 and 2015. The Senate sent House Bill 2429 to the governor Thursday afternoon. It raises the gross production tax on those wells from 1 to 4 percent during a four-year incentive period where they're taxed below the state's 7 percent gross production tax rate.

Critics of the measure say most of the production from those wells has already happened, but Sen. Roger Thompson said the tax increase is a necessary step.

"This year, these wells produced $67 million in gross production tax for the revenue for the state. They're still producing, they're still doing well," Thompson said. "Let's capture the gross production tax that we have on the wells while they're still as lively as they are."

State senators also approved Thursday giving the State Board of Education $18 million from the Rainy Day Fund to make up for some of last year’s cuts. Supporters say that’s the only way to truly hold education harmless, but Sen. Julie Daniels said it’s an insult to the other 66 state agencies that were also cut last year.

"Like a mother with 67 offspring, after working very hard to put a meal on the table for them all, disappointing some and struggling to get the job done, the one offspring that knows how to press mom's buttons asked for more," Daniels said.

Lawmakers approved several bills Thursday that directed or may require more spending, including a criminal justice reform measure.

Senate Bill 603 directs the Department of Corrections to assess each inmate’s risks and needs and come up with individual rehabilitation plans, making them less likely to return to prison. It will cost about $10 million a year Oklahoma doesn’t currently have through 2022, which put Reps. Tim Downing and Earl Sears on opposite sides.

"States that don't put money in up front, [criminal justice reform] is going to fail, because you're replacing incarceration with nothing," Downing said.

"Don't turn this down here, today, because, 'Well, I'm afraid they don't have the money.'" Sears said. "I'm telling you they don't have the money, but we're going to start out with baby steps."

The bill passed 69–26.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.