Gov. Brad Henry. Photo provided.

By Kory Oswald, The Vista Managing Editor

Last Friday, Gov. Brad Henry defended his plan to use almost $69 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund in his 2011 budget proposal and admonished critics for not offering any ideas of their own.

The governor, speaking to members of the Oklahoma Press Association at Rose State College last Friday, said cutting state agencies is only one way the state must combat the approximate 20 percent budget shortfall.

“I believe very passionately that a 35 percent cut virtually across the board to core services in government will cause irreparable damage to our service infrastructure,” Henry said.

Altogether Henry has proposed using $424.4 million of the state’s $600 million Rainy Day Fund for the 2010 and 2011 budget, along with $696.4 million of the money received from the federal government’s stimulus package.

Henry also said that additional cuts to state agencies, administrative consolidation of certain state agencies, as well as a one-year “holiday” on tax credits and certain one-time capital expenditures, and an Internet sales tax are also key to balancing the budget.

“Most agencies received a 7 percent cut at the beginning of 2010. Since then we’ve enacted an additional 7.5 percent cut,” Henry said.

“That means that agencies in state government … have received about a 14.5 percent cut to date. If we’re just going to deal with the 2011 budget hole with cuts then every agency is probably going to take … at least another 20 percent cut for 2011.”

The governor believes that cuts alone would also leave Oklahoma unprepared for the eventual economic recovery.

Henry warned that the state was going to have to make some “very difficult decisions” but believes lawmakers will ultimately have to discuss other actions that will help assuage the state’s budget shortfall.

Some legislators have proposed using less of the Rainy Day fund, but Henry said we should use more because the current budget problem is the reason for the fund.

“There has not been anybody … in state government more protective of the Rainy Day Fund than I have been over these last seven years. I worked hard to build it up … and partially because of my efforts … we have a full Rainy Day Fund for the fist time in history a few years ago was filled to the constitutional maximum,” Henry said.

“But the crisis we face today is precisely the kind of crisis the voters envisioned when they created the Rainy Day Fund.  That’s the purpose of the Rainy Day Fund.”

Henry also said he was worried legislators would want to use the money from the federal stimulus package instead of Rainy Day funds, which he said was illegal to do because of the contract he signed to get the money.

According to federal guidelines, states that received the stimulus money cannot use it to replenish or substitute their rainy day funds.

Henry said he will not cut dollars that go to teachers and classrooms of public and higher education, but he does think the state could cut money that goes toward administration.

He said the ultimate goal in education should be to achieve a “seamless system” that produces college graduates.

“I drew a pretty bright line in the sand on classroom resources and … teacher pay,” he said.

“Same thing on higher education. I believe very strongly that higher education is critical to the future of this state, and in particular to our economic recovery.”

Oklahoma is one of 12 states in the country that has had an increase in the percentage of adults that earn bachelor’s degrees in the past decade.

In 2009, nationally, more than one-quarter, or 27.2 percent, of adults 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or more, compared to Oklahoma at 22.2 percent, according to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

The regents also said that for every state-appropriated dollar spent on higher education in Oklahoma, an additional $5.15 is pumped into the Oklahoma economy and by the end of the next decade, Oklahoma’s gross state product will increase by $26.29 billion through higher education’s continued contribution to the economy.