Oklahoma’s Republican legislative leaders agreed Wednesday to a budget framework that will result in approximately $12.5 billion in spending in fiscal year 2025, which starts July 1.
Lawmakers will consider budget bills in the next few days, as staff work late hours to finalize the language and numbers. The Senate may have to meet Saturday and the House may have to meet on Memorial Day to get the budget across the finish line, although timelines were fluid. The session ends May 31.
The agreement, reached in the eighth meeting of a budget summit that started May 6, marks the first time late-stage budget negotiations were out in the open. Those negotiations were occasionally tense and sometimes punctuated by walkouts. They continued early Wednesday afternoon as participants at times struggled to speak above the sounds of a visiting high school drumline playing on the fourth floor of the Capitol rotunda. The budget summit concluded a little while later with handshakes and a selfie taken by Gov. Kevin Stitt.
“Friction is a good thing,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, who pushed his chamber to embark on a more transparent budget process this year. “It’s an ugly process at times, people got to see all the warts and everything this year. But friction drives a much better product. … We didn’t get everything we wanted, but that’s the way the process works.”
House Speaker Charles McCall said the negotiations gave the public a front-row seat to the complexities behind putting together a state budget.
“It’s not set up to be easy,” McCall said.
Negotiations dragged earlier in the week as the sides met for just half an hour on Monday afternoon. The House and Senate appeared to move closer on Tuesday, but the Senate still had concerns over the House’s position over a possible veto override of any potential budget agreement as the session wound down.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt appeared to break the logjam on Wednesday morning as he kicked off the day’s budget summit meeting. He promised not to veto the budget if lawmakers agreed to add $20 million to the Quick Action Closing Fund, an economic development tool used at his discretion to close business expansion or relocation deals.
Stitt also wanted a smaller-than-recommended salary increase for district court judges and money to stay in a litigation fund for the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court’s McGirt decision on tribal jurisdiction. He asked lawmakers to come up with a framework to start business courts, specialized courts to handle corporate disputes he touted in his State of the State address in February, but that idea went nowhere this session.
House and Senate budget negotiators agreed to those requests from the governor. They then spent several hours going over some final points of negotiation, including how much to dedicate to deferred maintenance. They settled on $350 million, with 45% going to state buildings, 45% to higher education and 10% for state parks.
Budget negotiators also agreed to add $177 million to the Legacy Capital Fund, a pot of money created last year to fund long-term projects without resorting to state bond sales. Among the new projects to be funded are the demolition of an aging parking garage for the Department of Environmental Quality, an animal diagnostic lab at Oklahoma State University and a new training center for the Department of Public Safety.
With Treat and McCall both term-limited, Stitt said he’ll miss them next year in budget discussions. But he said he had confidence in both House Speaker-Designate Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, and Senate Pro Tem-Designate Greg McCortney, R-Ada.
“Friction is a good thing.”
Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat
A personal income tax cut, priorities of both Stitt and McCall, was not part of the final budget agreement. The Senate held to its position that the elimination of the state’s 4.5% sales tax on groceries should be the session’s only major tax cut. Stitt signed the grocery sales tax measure into law in late February, although local governments can still collect their share of the grocery sales tax.
Still, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate said the budget didn’t do enough to address the problems of working Oklahomans.
“While we appreciate this agreement should negate the need for yet another costly special session, we are concerned the budget doesn’t address critical needs facing citizens in every district of the state,” Senate Democratic Leader Kay Floyd said in a press release. “This is not a bipartisan budget, because it misses important opportunities to invest more in our schools, health and mental health, and other programs that would have improved the lives of working Oklahomans and their families.”
House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson of Oklahoma City said Democrats were kept out of the public budget summits, leading to fewer discussions about child care expenses, hunger and health care for the neediest Oklahomans.
“Instead, we have observed Republican infighting, which unnecessarily prolonged the budget process,” Munson said. “Now the process is being rushed, which does not give legislators, stakeholders, or the public enough time to fully understand the budget and know how our tax dollars will be spent. In the future, we need to work together on bipartisan solutions that address real challenges in our state and benefit all Oklahoma families.”
Note: This story and headline have been updated to reflect the latest, reconciled numbers based on the House’s online budget portal.
Paul Monies has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2017 and covers state agencies and public health. Contact him at (571) 319-3289 or pmonies@oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter @pmonies.
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