Happy New Year to each of you—I hope you enjoyed the holidays. I was very happy to be able to spend time with my family and to share in Christmas celebrations around the district.
Now that January has arrived, the focus at the Capitol is the 2022 legislative session, which convenes next month. The deadline for members to provide staff with specific information or language for proposed legislation was Jan. 6, and the deadline for filing most kinds of legislation is Jan. 20
Ṫhere are exceptions to those deadlines. Bills dealing with the budget can be filed at any point during the session; typically, you don’t see those measures until the final weeks. But that doesn’t mean budget work hasn’t already been undertaken. On the contrary, work on the next fiscal year budget starts as soon as the regular session ends. For months, we’ve been reviewing economic data and revenue collections to help us better anticipate what kind of budget we can expect.
Just after Christmas, the State Board of Equalization (BOE) met at the Capitol to make its initial certification of how much money will be available to appropriate for the Fiscal Year 2023 budget, which will begin on July 1. Bolstered by improving energy prices, the BOE estimated the Legislature could have just over $10.3 billion to appropriate for FY 2023. That said, it must be noted that nearly $1.3 billion of that includes one-time carryover funds and special cash from previous sessions. One-time money means you can’t count on it to be there in future budget years, so we must take a fiscally conservative approach to ensure we do not utilize those funds for recurring expenses. I believe we should continue to add to our emergency savings and avoid spending that could put us in a budget hole in the future.
For the past several weeks, the Senate’s appropriation subcommittees have been holding budget hearings ahead of the session. State agencies submit their budget requests in the fall, then during these hearings, they have an opportunity to explain how their current appropriations are being utilized and make their cases for their new budget proposals.
I chair the Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Regulatory Services, charged with overseeing the budgets of 13 state entities. So far we’ve held a dozen budget hearings with various agencies, meeting jointly with our counterparts in the House.
I also was invited to speak at the Governor’s annual Water Conference and Research Symposium last month. The Oklahoma Water Resources Board is one of the agencies under my subcommittee. This annual conference gives us an opportunity to examine the state’s water needs and any issues on the horizon that may impact this vital resource.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more information about legislation I’ve introduced and other key bills that will be considered during the session. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns about state government, please contact me by email at Darcy.Jech@oksenate.gov or by phone at 405-521- 5545. Thank you for allowing me to be your voice in the Oklahoma Senate.