Big state agencies seek big increases 
Capitol Report for dailies for week of Jan 28, 2007
By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureau
About 1,300 state prisoners are backed up in county jails on any given day, there are no empty beds in private prisons, sentences are longer and the prison population is growing at 2 percent a year. 
Funding has not kept pace, Corrections Director Justin Jones told a House committee during a review prior to the 2007 Legislature.
"As the count increases, funding has gone downhill," he said.
Cost of medical care is up, aggravated by methamphetamine use before incarceration and growing numbers of geriatric inmates, along with higher expenses for payroll, supplies, infrastructure and other needs.
 The perpetually needy Department of Corrections consequently is making an amended budget request for fiscal year 2008 of $619.01 million, or $163 million more than FY 2007 appropriations. And there is the usual supplemental request, this time $47.2 million or $5.7 million more than its July estimate because of growing bed requirements.
"The recurring failure to fund these costs have caused the department to annually reduce budgeted staff, reduce facility operating budgets and defer facility, security, technology and communication maintenance and upgrades over a 10-year period," Jones' request said.
Bond issues would provide 1,568 new maximum security beds at the McAlester State Penitentiary as well as a new 2,400 bed medium security prison with an attached 300 bed minimum security support unit. With other upgrades, long-term bond issues would total $434.9 million, with an annual debt service of $35.2 million.
It's just a snapshot of funding issues that will face Oklahoma legislators in the Centennial session beginning Feb. 5, while slumping energy prices reduce revenue projections from the robust growth of the last two years.
Among big agency requests are common and higher education, which last year received $3.4 billion of a total state budget of $6.6 billion. They are seeking $600 million more. State Superintendent Sandy Garrett is asking for $400 million more than last year along with $58 million to meet funding needs. Higher Education Chancellor Glen Johnson asked for $171 million more than the current record $1 billion appropriation. 
Gov. Brad Henry on Friday proposed a record $3.9 billion budget for public education, focusing on teacher pay, dropout prevention and college scholarships.
Health care officials want $175 million more to improve access to health care and better services, $19.1 million for the Health Department and $156.2 million for the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, which administers Medicaid. A proposal by Gov. Brad Henry to bring another 40,000 children into the Medicaid program by raising the eligibility level to 300 percent of poverty would add $8.5 million. 
The Department of Human Services is asking for an increase of $152.1 million from a total of $688 million to handle an older population, more fragile families, growing child abuse, high agency turnover linked to inadequate wages and higher health care costs.
Director Howard Hendrick said health insurance costs alone have increased by 150 percent over the last five years.
"We could fund a lot of child welfare workers for just one year's increase in health insurance," he told a House committee.


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The governor, House and Senate Republicans and House Democrats have begun rolling out broad agendas for the next four months, some citing similar goals.
House Republicans will target what they consider "jackpot justice" in frivolous lawsuits, faster income tax cuts if revenue projections permit, more charter schools, rewards for exceptional teachers, open government and an "entrepreneurial society" focused on removing barriers to economic growth.
 House Democrats will push health care for all children, make higher education accessible to more young people, a first-class educational system, a strong economy, safe communities for children and responsible government and ethics reform.
 Henry's proposals include expansion of a state subsidy from tobacco taxes for small business health insurance, which registered little enthusiasm among House and Senate Republican leaders. He also would tap the state income tax by 1.25 percent to permanently fund the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program, which provides scholarships to students in families with less than $50,000 of annual income. 
Republicans, intent on phasing out the income tax, did not want any spending program tied to it.  
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Oklahoma's gravely anemic teacher retirement system would get a $70 million transfusion this year under a bill by Sen. J. Paul Gumm, D-Durant, using half of the $140 million in "spillover" funds from the 2006 Legislature.
"This won't solve all the problems, but it would give the system added strength at a time we have the resources available," he said.
The system last year had an unfunded liability of $7 billion, topping the state's entire budget of $6.6 billion.
Gumm said an agreement last year to provide more dollars "got caught in election politics."
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