Gov. Mary Fallin signed Friday afternoon bills making supplemental appropriations to the Oklahoma Health Care Authority and Department of Human Services.
The House signed off on the measures Friday morning.
The additional funding — $17.7 million for OHCA and $26.5 million for DHS will fund services for poor, elderly and disabled Oklahomans through April. That includes stopping Medicaid provider rate cuts and programs to keep elderly people who need minimal care stay in their homes rather than go to nursing homes.
The funding is coming from higher taxes on some oil and gas wells approved in the first special session. Rep. Forrest Bennett said that revenue is just starting to come in, and he’s wary of the projections.
"At one point, we were tying specific programs to revenue we weren't sure was going be there, and now we're tying entire agencies," Bennett said. "Would you believe that is a little bit worrisome for me?"
Though four senators voted against the funding measures this week, there were no House votes against them, but Rep. Jason Dunnington also had concerns about whether the money will actually be there.
"Do you find it ironic that this body is holding court, if you will, over agencies on how they spend their money and how they've misallocated or how they've misappropriated some of their funding, but here we are as a body about to pass two different revenue measures that we're not sure if the money's there?" Dunnington said.
Rep. John Bennett asked Rep. Pat Ownbey whether the $26.5 million for DHS had been allocated to specific programs.
"DHS is known to cut money from the most vulnerable programs when they don't think they have enough money or aren't going to get enough money," John Bennett said.
"DHS does have a spending limits bill, and I would disagree with your thought process on them cutting money to the most vulnerable when they can cut other things," Ownbey said. "We'll be glad to sit down with you and go over how much they have cut just from administration over the last several years."
Also on Friday morning, the House and Senate approved each other's motions to adjourn to the call of the chair.
"The idea being the governor has said she may expand the call for special session, and we may be coming back in, in January if a bipartisan agreement is reached," said House Majority Leader Jon Echols.
"We don't know the exact date we'll be coming back, but we'll be in communication with you," said Senate Majority Leader Greg Treat. "It will be sometime in January, obviously, but we will give you more communication as things develop."
State leaders have a $110 million hole left to fill this year, and they'll be working to fill it and fund OHCA, DHS, and the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services through the rest of the fiscal year.
A long-term budget solution could also be reached.
“I’m optimistic we can reach a long-term, predictable solution to fix our budget problems,” Fallin said. “I’ll also continue to push in the days ahead for a pay raise for teachers and state employees.”
