Oklahoma state officials need to use a combination of solutions to put an end to budget crises.
State Treasurer Ken Miller stopped in Tulsa Friday to talk about the looming $1.3 billion shortfall and the state's second revenue failure of fiscal year 2016. He said Oklahoma’s funding of core services is already below the national average.
"When you put this back into where we are today and the funding we have available, you have to ask your question: Can spending cuts alone correct this problem?" Miller said. "And I don't think so."
Miller wants to see Oklahoma modernize its tax code to reflect the state’s transition away from a solely goods-based economy.
He said the looming budget shortfall is partly a product of bad practices. Miller said the 2008 recession forced the state into some bad habits, such as writing one-time revenues into annual budgets, just to get by.
"But once you recover and you get back into positive territory and you are in an economic expansion, then you need to lay those suboptimal practices aside," Miller said. "We did not. We became dependent on those in bad times and then in good times as well."
Even though Oklahoma’s fiscal year 2017 budget is set to be almost 20 percent less than 2016’s, Miller praised Gov. Mary Fallin for not using one-time revenues in it.
"They likely will be, and I'm not going to criticize anyone in the legislature for putting them in there this year, because we've got to get through a very difficult time," Miller said.
All four of the state’s major income sources — income, sales, gross production and motor vehicle taxes — are down from a year ago. Gross production taxes took the biggest slide. They’re down 55 percent from 2015.
