Oklahoma legislators end 2024 session

(The Center Square) – The Oklahoma Legislature said “sine die” Thursday to a session marked by eight days of contentious negotiations that led to a $12.47 billion budget.

Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat began the session by saying he wanted a transparent budget process. He said he had achieved that goal.

“The Senate made history by implementing a new process to make crafting a state budget transparent from beginning to end,” Treat said. “This allowed the public and the press to have a behind-the-scenes look at every step in the Senate’s process, starting with discussing state agency budget requests and ending with negotiating with the House and the governor.”

The House also created a budget transparency portal.

“Through the hard work of House staff, Oklahomans have been able to see every step of the budget process play out, and can see exactly where their hard earned tax dollars are being spent,” McCall said. “Although the House would have preferred to see an income tax cut included, the budget passed by the Legislature is a good budget that funds core services and decreases government spending from last year.”

Democrats said they felt left out of the process, and some priorities were not included.

“Instead, Republicans put the Governor’s priorities first: putting $20M in the Governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund that has little oversight or accountability, tribal litigation fund to continue fighting with tribes, attacking our judiciary by keeping judicial salaries below the regional average, and creating an unnecessary business courts task force,” House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, said in a statement. “This budget missed opportunities to make significant investments in childcare, mental and behavioral health care, and public education. With record savings, we could have put more money back into the pockets of everyday, working Oklahomans by modernizing the Sales Tax Relief Credit, but instead, put more public tax dollars into private schools and private businesses.”

Senate Democratic Leader Kay Floyd, D-Oklahoma City, said not allowing Democrats to have a seat at the budget negotiating table was a missed opportunity for citizens.

“We’re still not investing enough in our public schools, while diverting even more public money to private schools,” Floyd said. “We’ve missed opportunities to provide greater access to health and mental health care.”