Okla. Gov. Henry defends his plan to generate new revenue, calls on critics to generate ideas

Okla. gov. defends budget plan, calls for ideas

MIDWEST CITY, Okla. — Gov. Brad Henry on Friday defended his ideas for generating more than $660 million in new revenue to help balance next year’s budget, calling on his critics to come up with their own plan if they don’t like his.

During a speech to newspaper publishers from across the state, Henry said without new sources of revenue, the state agencies and the overall economy will face “irreparable damage.”

Henry said most state agencies already have faced cuts totaling nearly 15 percent over the last two years. With 20 percent less to spend next year, Henry says the state risks being unable to provide necessary core services to citizens.

“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.

After Henry issued his plan for a balanced budget on Monday, Republican leaders in the House and Senate said many of Henry’s revenue proposals, such as collecting taxes on Internet sales, are unrealistic. Henry also has proposed, among other things, a one-year moratorium on select tax credits, increasing fees for various state services, automated enforcement of vehicle insurance and a $200 million transportation bond issue.

“It’s fine to criticize — I can take criticism as well as the next guy,” Henry said Friday. “But it’s not acceptable to simply sit on the sidelines and criticize.”

Henry’s Internet sales tax proposal, which also applies to telephone or mail-order sales made to Oklahoma, would allow the Oklahoma Tax Commission to collect taxes from out-of-state companies making sales in the state. The Tax Commission estimates $180 million in sales taxes currently aren’t being collected, and Henry’s budget projects about $95 million could be collected.

That proposal already has drawn resistance from House Speaker Chris Benge, who said members in the GOP-controlled House view the plan as a new tax.

“At least at this point, I interpret it that way, which makes it almost impossible to get passed,” said Benge, R-Tulsa.

One of Henry’s proposals to balance the budget that could pick up some support is a plan to consolidate more than a dozen of the state’s 180 agencies, many of which he contends have overlapping missions, responsibilities and duties.

“Many of them, if not most of them, have their own human resources person, their own information officer, their own this, that or the other,” Henry said. “I don’t know that we need all that duplication of services.”

Henry said Friday he envisions an overarching state Department of Justice that could absorb at least a half-dozen separate law enforcement agencies.

Benge declined to comment on Henry’s specific suggestions for agency consolidations, but seemed more than open to the concept.

“I do think we’ll be very serious about consolidating agencies this year,” Benge said. “I just don’t have an opinion on each one at this point.”

One area where Henry said forced consolidations would not occur this year is among the state’s 532 local school districts.

“I certainly would agree that Oklahoma has too many school districts,” Henry said, “But in so many areas, especially in rural Oklahoma, the schools are the largest employer and the lifeblood of communities.

“There’s no legislation that has a chance in the world to force consolidation of school districts.”