Episode Details

A whole lot has happened over the last week! From declarations of revenue failures at the state and city level, to civic groups suing the election board, to legislative candidates who don't actually live in Oklahoma, to - wait for it - the state is slowly beginning to reopen. But is that a good idea? We discuss it all!

• Governor Stitt announced that SQ802, Medicaid Expansion, will be on the ballot on June 30th.
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• Quick recap:
• On Monday, April 6th, Governor Stitt cancelled the Board of Equalization meeting because his ‘digital transformation’ project was not funded. So, he only signed 2 of the 3 bills the legislature passed to help shore up this year’s budget, but without that third bill, there was still a $416M hole in the budget. Basically, they state was funded through the end of April, but we didn’t have enough money for May and June. The legislature scoffed.
• So, a week later, on Tuesday, April 13th, House & Senate leaders sued the Governor to force the Board of Equalization to meet, because they have to declare a revenue failure in order for OMES to be allowed to access the state’s Rainy Day Fund. The Governor scoffed.
• This week, the Governor unceremoniously called a meeting of the Board of Equalization, who meet via Zoom and declared a revenue failure for current fiscal year (FY2020). While most everyone agrees that next fiscal year (FY21, which begins on July 1st) will also have a revenue failure, we have to wait until we get there before the Board of Equalization can make that determination. (But that didn’t stop the Governor from announcing his proposal for budget cuts for both FY21 and FY22.
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• Meanwhile, the price of oil went negative. Congresswoman Kendra Horn suggests the US invest $3 billion to add additional oil to the strategic oil reserve.
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• Oklahoma City basically declared a revenue failure and announced across-the-board departmental budget cuts ranging from 3-11%. Cities are funded by sales tax revenue and, well, the world is closed.
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