TABOR foes paint bleak picture for state services

Capitol Spotlight for weeklies for week of Feb. 19, 2006

By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureau

A coalition fighting the proposed Taxpayers Bill of Rights amendment is painting a picture of Oklahoma services in ruin if State Question 726 is approved in a statewide vote - a contention disputed by a leading TABOR advocate.
Conceding that anti-TABOR forces have a more simple message -  "cut my taxes and restrain government growth" - members of the coalition said they hope to avoid the "under the radar" passage thought to have occurred in Colorado.
Damage would be particularly heavy for cash-short city and county governments and for rural services, said former Democratic Sen. Dave Herbert of Midwest City, representing the County Government Legislative Council.
The groups held a kickoff news conference at the capitol followed by a budget forum in Norman.
Carol Hedges of the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute said TABOR passed on the third try in Colorado in 1992, when many Colorado voters were not particularly concerned since it had twice failed.  There were special circumstances that year, she said - Colorado gave third party presidential candidate Ross Perot one of his biggest state totals and there was an anti-gay measure on the ballot that brought out conservative voters.
"TABOR will force severe reductions in the quality of your schools, roads, universities, health care and economy," said Hedges, author of Ten Years of TABOR: A study of Colorado's Taxpayer's  Bill of Rights. "It doesn't cut waste - it cuts the heart of services that Oklahomans most value and demand."
Colorado plunged from the mid-range of states in providing services to "the bottom of the barrel" after TABOR passed, she said.
Hedges said core features of Colorado's TABOR, which voters last year suspended for five years, are duplicated in the Oklahoma proposal - a constitutional spending formula, spending determined by annual changes in population and inflation, and an override only by referendum.
 A chief legislative proponent of TABOR strongly disagreed that the measures are the same.
"There's a huge difference," said Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso. "I guess the main difference is that we have an emergency fund and a budget stabilization fund.
"I can tell you that if we had had TABOR in effect the last 10 years like Colorado, when we came up a couple of years ago and ran short of money, we could have taken the budget stabilization fund and sent that money to higher priorities like education and health care."
Brogdon agreed TABOR'S message is simple.
"The bill is so simple," he said. 'It does one thing - slows how fast government can grow."
While the state has 12,000 miles of roads to maintain, Herbert said, counties have more than 85,000 miles of roads that contain many of the school bus routes.
"What's certain with TABOR is that as state government becomes less able to fund services, more of the responsibility will fall to cities and counties and we will fall further behind," Herbert said.
The initiative petition will undergo a signature protest period and could face court challenges before reaching the ballot. 
HHH
Gov. Brad Henry wants to use an additional $75 million in growth revenue to speed the process of reaching the regional average in teacher salaries.
Oklahoma is in the second year of a four-year project to reach the regional average, currently $40,124 compared to Oklahoma's $37,879.
"This new revenue will allow us to accelerate that effort and reach the regional average faster than we had initially planned," Henry said.
The Senate Education Committee has approved a Republican senator's proposal to boost the pay of some teachers by up to $10,000.
Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, amended a Democratic bill calling for a $3,000 raise for all teachers to provide a $10,000 increase for teachers with a doctoral degree. Teachers with a master's degree would get $5,000 and those with a bachelor's degree would receive $3,000 more.
HHH
House and Senate committees had disgorged dozens of bills for consideration in the chambers by the end of the legislature's second week, many of them advancing the agenda of the political parties.
The House Health and Human Service Committee approved four anti-abortion bills by Republican leaders although a GOP House member who is an emergency room doctor opposed all four as a threat to the doctor-patient relationship and an unnecessary burden.
The bills would require that a woman seeking an abortion be told a fetus older than 20 weeks may experience pain, require offering an ultrasound view of the baby, require doctors performing abortions fill out more forms and require parental consent for a minor to receive an abortion.
"I resent the Legislature telling me as a doctor what I should do with my patient," said Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove.
He suggested that if a legislator want to "tell my how to practice medicine," he should go to medical school.

###