If the Oklahoma legislature wraps up special session in this seventh week, it will likely be because lawmakers settle on cuts and one-time spending to partially fill a $215 million budget hole.
The latest proposal from Oklahoma City is using $106 million in one-time funds and cutting most state agency budgets by 2.4 percent. The idea is to find money instate agencies deemed nonessential and funnel those funds to agencies providing core services, like public safety, health and education.
"Those things, at this point in time, are protected in the budget agreement that they have at this point in time," Fallin said. "But next year, we still have a big hurdle to cross. And I will tell them next year, 'I told you so,' but this is a real deal."
Gov. Mary Fallin said the current "cash and cuts" plan is what she and leaders in the legislature came up with.
"It's not what I want, and I will tell you I think the majority of the legislature doesn't want that, either," Fallin said. "But there has to be cooperation, and the other hurdle that's been very challenging for our state has been State Question 640 that passed in the early 1990s."
Because it doesn’t include tax increases, the plan needs only a simple majority to pass.
This latest plan comes in the wake of a failed vote on a grand bargain last week. It included cigarette, tobacco, fuel, low-point beer and gross production tax increases but fell five votes short in the House of the three-fourths majority required to pass a tax increase.
"I wish that we could go and do a second vote on the original bill or do the cigarette tax, but, in the end, they just told me no," Fallin said.
House and Senate budget committees passed HB1019 late Tuesday.
