With barely a week left, little movement has been made on a new budget for Oklahoma
Delegations from Oklahoma's Senate and House of Representatives launched their week with another budget "summit" in an effort to finalize a state budget for the 2025 fiscal year. It was the seventh time they met since Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt came up with the joint hearing idea two weeks ago.
The week did not start well.
Monday's meeting followed one on Friday, normally an off day for lawmakers. During Friday's session, Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat said even though the Senate had agreed to millions in spending being touted by the House, the Senate would not sign off on a final budget deal unless the House committed to overriding any gubernatorial vetoes on the budget.
At that point, the meeting ended abruptly.
After Friday's meeting, McCall and Treat spoke with reporters. Treat again asked House leaders for a pledge to override any items in the final budget agreement on which Stitt might issue a line-item veto. McCall declined.
"I find it ironic the Senate is asking me to guarantee we put up and pass a veto override, when they refuse to put up a vote, just a vote, on the tax cut," McCall said.
Treat countered that the House had, essentially, abdicated its leadership to the governor's office.
"It's unfortunate the House of Representatives just turned over to the governor's office," Treat said. "I've been saying over and over, 'is the speaker in charge of the House, or is the governor in charge of the House?' We just got a clear, well, non-answer."
Any concessions that the Senate had made were not valid if the House was unwilling to override any vetoes by the governor, Treat said.
"It's been told to me repeatedly that the speaker's team has told lobbyists and government agencies that they will not override vetoes. And I think I got ― it wasn't a clear response, but — an understanding today that that may very well be what the speaker has directed his team to do," he said.
New voices in the discussion, but the tensions and disagreements remained the same
Monday's meeting was much of the same, though a new player stepped on stage in the budget drama: Public Safety Commissioner Tim Tipton. Tipton criticized the Senate team after Greg McCortney, the majority floor leader, called for a pause in the construction of a new Oklahoma Department of Public Safety tactical training center.
Last year, state lawmakers earmarked $59 million for the first phase of a tactical training facility that would be used to train Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers, officers from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and those from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. A second phase, under consideration as part of the FY 25 budget, would cost about $74 million.
Total cost for the project would be more than $133 million.
"It's not too late to adjust from a bad decision," McCortney, R-Ada, said. "I believe it was presented in two phases because no one would have approved the amount of spending that was actually going to be proposed. We're doubling a workload, we're doubling FTEs that could be combined together. We have assets in the state that can do many of these things."
Tipton countered that McCortney was attempting to defund law enforcement.
"It is astonishing to me that the soon-to-be pro tempore of the Oklahoma Senate would take a position to not only stop this critical training need, but to go back and defund what has already been done," he said.
McCortney denied that he was attempting to defund law enforcement. He said he had legitimate questions about whether or not the training center was a wise use of state funding and whether or not the new facility would duplicate other training efforts, such as those from the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training.
"To be fair, the property at CLEET and the topography at southeastern Oklahoma is not good for the driving track that the highway patrol needs," McCortney said. "But I think everything but the driving track could be done at CLEET. Lot of shared resources there. Lot of shared staff there."
Still, even though he had "many questions" about the DPS training facility, McCortney said the Senate had agreed with the House position to fund the project.
"The last offer we made to the House of Representatives included this project," McCortney said. "So the fact that the Commissioner is running around, A) calling me a liar, and B) saying I'm try to defund the police — that is clearly not true. It (funding for the DPS project) was one of the things we had in the offer today that they could have said yes to today."
Tipton's entrance in the budget negotiations adds new pressure to an already difficult process. Monday evening, Treat and McCortney said they remained focused on completing a budget before the end of session.
"They badgered me for the first few meetings, but then the speaker and the governor pulled themselves out, and we got really, really productive; then the speaker came back in, and we got unproductive," Treat said. "Then he left, and we're still unproductive."
Tipton's implication the Senate wasn't supportive of law enforcement wasn't a smart move on the commissioner's part, Treat said.
"During budget negotiation on Friday, he (Tipton) came in and sat with the House and he went in the copy room with the House and he caucused — and I use caucused loosely — with the House," Treat said. "He's not playing this wisely."
Oklahoma Legislature has little over a week to agree on a budget
With just nine days left before the Legislature is required to adjourn the 2024 legislative session, the pressure to complete the budget — and possibly use a special session to protect the budget from gubernatorial vetoes — grows stronger each day.
McCall said the House would continue budget negotiations in good faith.
"The House has come to the negotiating table in good faith throughout the budgeting process. As Speaker, I have decentralized power, and empowered the House budget negotiating team to make budget deals on behalf of the House," McCall said in a statement Tuesday to The Oklahoman. "They will be back at the table today, operating in good faith."
The speaker said he and the House "are still committed to negotiating a budget on behalf of the citizens of Oklahoma, and look forward to getting a deal done.”
Treat said he, too, remains optimistic.
"I still believe that we will have a budget deal by May 31," he said. "But I don't know what that (deal) will look like. I walked in Friday's meeting thinking we'd get a budget deal. I walked in today thinking we'd get a budget deal. Maybe I just need to walk in with lower expectations, and we'll get a deal."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Little progress made on budget in Oklahoma Legislature special summit
