Stitt talks budget during Ada meet and greet

For the first time in state history, lawmakers added $200 million to the state’s savings account to protect essential services in the future, Gov. Kevin Stitt said Monday.

“The Legislature always — whatever they have appropriated to spend, they spend every dollar traditionally,” he said. “And I said, ‘Listen, when we have revenue increases, we’ve got to set aside and make sure that we set up our savings account so that we don’t cut core services.

“Because in business and in life, we know that our revenue doesn’t always go in a straight line up. You have some down years.”

Stitt said the state had $422 million in savings when he took office in January, but that amount will rise to $1.1 billion by the end of the next fiscal year. He added that his ultimate goal is to boost that amount to $2 billion.

Stitt spoke about Oklahoma’s budget for fiscal year 2020 and other issues facing the state during a meet-and-greet Monday at the Ada Arts and Heritage Center.

State budget

Stitt recently approved an $8.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2020 and another measure that set aside $200 million for the state’s savings, according to a May 24 news release from the governor’s office.

Some highlights of the FY 2020 budget include:

• Common education: The Legislature boosted common education funding by $158 million overall. That amount included $58.9 million to provide public school teachers with an average raise of $1,220 — the second pay raise in two years.

Lawmakers also appropriated $19 million to pay for cost increases for teachers’ flexible benefit allowances.

Lawmakers set aside $5.5 million for the Reading Sufficiency Act, which is designed to ensure that all students are reading at the appropriate grade level at the end of third grade. And the Legislature provided $74.3 million for local school districts to hire additional teachers, counselors and social workers or take other steps to address their unique needs.

• Higher education: Lawmakers increased the appropriation for faculty compensation by 3.5%, boosting it to $18.1 million. The Legislature also provided $3.3 million to fully fund concurrent enrollment programs for seniors.

• Transportation: Lawmakers fully funded the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s eight-year plan for upgrading roads and bridges for the first time, according to the news release. The state also put $30 million back into the county roads program so counties could move forward with plans to upgrade their roads and bridges.

• Criminal justice: The Legislature put $10 million into the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health’s Smart on Crimes programs, which is designed to steer people struggling with mental illness or addiction into a treatment program instead of through the criminal justice system.

Lawmakers changed the way that district attorneys’ offices are funded, replacing supervision fees with a $20 million appropriation. The Legislature also provided $1.5 million for the Women in Recovery diversion program and $1.7 million to provide drug court alternatives.

Stitt said Monday that he was satisfied with the new budget.

“I’ve got all of our priorities in, and we had about $800 million more (to spend), so I don’t know how anyone could be disappointed,” he said.