Budget & Tax

Stitt: The Legislature ‘owns’ future budget problems

May 14, 2020

Ray Carter

A day after having his vetoes of budget bills quickly overridden by state lawmakers, Gov. Kevin Stitt said he has no regrets.

“I wasn’t going to put my name on a budget that had a billion-dollar structural deficit,” Stitt said. “I’m glad that’s in the past. They overrode it. The Legislature owns that budget. The facts are the facts and so when we get to next year, which is seven months away, we’ll have the Board of Equalization meeting, and we’ll be in here dealing with the ’22 budget. I think I’m going to be proven correct that we’ve got some structural problems and we should have addressed them this year instead of borrowing some one-time funds.”

The day before Stitt vetoed Senate Bill 1922, the general appropriation bill for all of state government, and several related measures, citing concerns about excessive spending based on diversion of pension and road funding. Supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature voted to override those vetoes within a matter of hours. Legislative leaders said the diversions are temporary and will not harm pension or road programs, and the use of the money prevented larger spending cuts this year. Under the legislative budget plan, most agencies saw cuts of around 4 percent, although K-12 schools were cut just over 2 percent.

“I feel great today,” Stitt said. “I have shared with Oklahomans my reason for vetoing it. The Legislature disagreed with me, and they’ve got to answer to Oklahomans for that. And I’m happy to stand up every day and tell Oklahomans why I did it.”