Doerflinger: State Budget At Turning Point
State budget at turning point
BY PRESTON L. DOERFLINGER
After Oklahoma’s booming economy helped send $11.7 billion in tax collections — the most annual collections ever — to the state treasury last year, state government promptly found itself with $188 million less for the state budget than the year before.
Huh?
It’s nutty, but true. Over several decades, policymakers have carved so much revenue off the top of the budget for mandatory expenses that money available for the annual budget actually dropped last year even as overall revenue and spending grew.
Only in government can there be more money than ever, but less money than last year. That sounds like some vintage Will Rogers colloquialism, but it’s the tune I’ve found myself singing when discussing state finances over the past year. I am increasingly asked: “If the economy’s so strong, what’s up with the down revenues?” Fair question.
There are many reasons, and the growth in off-the-top revenue diversions looms large among them. Diversions enacted years ago have grown in cost, resulting in current officeholders inheriting a fiscal climate largely of their predecessors’ creation.