Passage of SQ 744 would mean bad news for Oklahoma state budget

BY DAVID BLATT Oklahoman  

Many Oklahomans are dissatisfied with the state's level of investment in public education. According to recent data, Oklahoma ranks 49th in per-pupil expenditures for K-12 education and the state fiscal crisis has now led to two consecutive years of shrinking education budgets. Even before the downturn, the ability or willingness of Oklahoma legislators to provide adequate funding for education through the normal appropriation process was widely questioned.

These concerns have led some to consider constitutional change as a solution to Oklahoma's school funding challenges. State Question 744 is a ballot measure that, if approved by voters on Nov. 2, would amend the state constitution so as to peg the annual education budget in Oklahoma to the regional average per-pupil expenditure in Oklahoma's six bordering states.

There is no question that passage of SQ 744 would lead to a massive increase in spending on education in Oklahoma over the coming years. However, once carefully thought through and understood, it becomes clear that SQ 744 represents the wrong approach to the problems it aims to solve.

We calculate that SQ 744 would require nearly $1.7 billion in increased funding exclusively for common education over its three-year phase-in period, at a time when the state must replace more than $1 billion in nonrecurring revenue in its base budget. Since the measure doesn't provide for any new revenues, passage of SQ 744 would ensure a severe funding shortage for all other functions of government that could be addressed only by deep budget cuts or substantial tax increases.

In addition, the measure would hand authority for Oklahoma's budget over to legislators and courts in other states and lacks mechanisms to ensure improved educational quality.

The fundamental fallacy of SQ 744 is the idea that we can solve our education funding problems in isolation from the rest of the state budget. Yet in addition to common education, we rank low in funding for public health, social services, transportation, natural resources and higher education, which contributes to outcomes in these areas that fall far short of many of our goals for creating a prosperous, safe and healthy state. SQ 744 creates the strong likelihood of setting the state further behind in these other areas of public investment that all Oklahomans, including our schoolchildren and teachers, rely on.

The real and ongoing challenge Oklahoma faces is to get our revenues aligned with the cost of providing core public services. If we fail at this more fundamental task, the result is likely to be continued efforts like SQ 744 that try an isolated approach through earmarked funding and spending formulas.

If passage of SQ 744 would leave the state budget in dire and unmanageable condition, defeat of SQ 744 should initiate a serious and urgent discussion of what we must do to ensure an adequate investment in a quality education for our children and our other state priorities in a fiscally responsible manner.

Blatt is director of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, a policy think tank (www.okpolicy.org).