Why the governor must veto the proposed state budget

Local officials are struggling to deal with the millions in damages upon roads as a result of this weekend’s unprecedented rain and flooding. It’s ironic for these events to occur just as they and many of us in the Legislature are coming to grips with the unexpected 180 degree reversal of state leaders in regards to support for transportation funding.

Oklahoma’s current generation of state officials sought election on a platform of properly funding the state’s backlog of transportation needs. At the heart of this platform lies a principle to which most Oklahomans will passionately agree: motor vehicle taxes should be used for roads and not raided by politicians for other purposes. Oklahoma’s high motor vehicle fees are a user fee for roads and all of that money should go to road repair!

The transportation backlog wasn’t an accident as throughout many years Oklahoma politicians enacted high motor vehicle taxes and fees while simultaneously raiding the majority of that money for other purposes.

For the past 10 years, Oklahoma’s newly-elected officials have delivered on the promise to systematically direct motor vehicles funds away from the politicians and directly to transportation.

Just three years ago, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin made the funding of transportation a priority in her 2012 State of the State address and signed our legislation to increase the percent of motor vehicles taxes going to state and county transportation while reducing the amount going to the politicians. At the end of the 2012 session, Fallin held a very public signing ceremony in which her transportation secretary declared, “This is a big day for transportation in Oklahoma, the biggest day I’ve ever seen for transportation in Oklahoma.”

Regular readers of this article will know that I have written about this effort on multiple occasions over the past years and have been quick to praise those who have led the effort, including our former Speaker of the House, T.W. Shannon, who authored the increased percent of funding for transportation.

But, this time, it’s with great disappointment that I strongly oppose the state budget, for several important reasons, including its reversal of this important reform.

Under the new budget the amount of motor vehicle funds going to county roads will be capped with the 21 million dollar overage going away from transportation and to the politicians to appropriate where it isn’t being used for transportation.

Over the past few weeks, those of us who support transportation funding knew this cap would likely be brought forward. But, to add insult to injury, on the day before the budget was brought up for a vote, we realized that the government also intends to raid already existing transportation funds of 50 million dollars.

This revelation caught many legislators off guard including the Chairman of our Transportation Budget Committee who indicated that he had no knowledge of the raid and voted against the budget. Also surprised were the county commissioners who knew about the cap but not the raid.

As they debated for the budget, leaders of the House insisted that they had talked about this raid since March. Maybe we could have had time to figure out how exactly this gargantuan miscommunication occurred except that those same leaders asked the House to suspend a key transparency rule which requires the budget to be available for public review for at least 24 hours before it is voted upon.

Thus, once transparency was suspended, the budget was brought up for a vote just minutes after being released by committee and posted to the House calendar. The final version of the budget wasn’t written until the day of the vote. Not only was this a major step backwards in transparency, but it gave legislators, the press, transportation and county officials, and the public little time to read the bill much less have their voice heard. By the time many had realized what happened, the budget had already received a vote.

There are numerous other reasons for why this budget must be vetoed and I intend to write about them in next week’s article.

Should the Governor sign this budget, she will be taking the first step backwards to the policies of the past governments which deprived funding from the core purposes of government for the sake of providing politicians with more money.

Her support will signify tacit approval of the old guard legislative tactics of throwing out a budget before legislators and the public can know what they are voting on. That alone provides ample justification for a veto. To sign this budget is inexcusable!

Thank you for reading this article. Your interest and input are much appreciated. Please do not hesitate to email [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions.