You Thought Last Year Was Bad

Capitol Considerations

A Weekly Column by Senator Micheal Bergstrom

You Thought Last Year Was Bad

Hold on to your hats. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

The State’s budget problems are even worse than you thought.

Let’s start with the projected budget shortfall that’s somewhere in the $880 million range. (That doesn’t include the recent revenue failures.)  Now, let’s add to that the more than $100 million that we’re trying to come up with right now because some of the state’s agencies were only given funding in the current budget for 10 months.

You heard that right. Last year, the legislature solved part of the budget crisis by only budgeting funds for 10 months instead of 12. That is called ‘kicking the budget crisis can’ down the road. That can is now full of worms and needing to be dealt with.

So, here we are with a billion dollar budget shortfall.

Don’t worry. It gets worse.

It turns out last year the legislature decided to empty out the state’s ‘Special Cash Fund,’ which is sort of like a bank account a business might keep working capital in. The problem is, constitutionally, the State of Oklahoma has to pay its bills. That takes money. You know, cash.

So, to do that, the folks who pay the bills, also known as the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprises Services (OMES), had to borrow a little from the Rainy Day Fund, in the amount of $380 million.

Oh, and that has to be paid back to the Rainy Day Fund by June 30.

That means that our budget shortfall is actually just under $1.4 billion.

Last year it was $1.3 billion. So this year is even worse. If your head is starting to hurt thinking about that, just imagine how I feel.

The question is how do we fix this? Well, we need to start by putting everything on the table. Here are some examples.

One - We need to scrap the next income tax cut. The Senate has. Now it’s up to the House.

Two - Find every efficiency we can, though I doubt we are going to find a billion dollars that way.

Three - Get rid of some tax incentives and credits, and not just wind production credits.

Four -  Pass a production tax on electricity generated by wind.

            Five - Consider an increase of taxes on diesel and gas. They have not been increased in three decades.

Six -  Consider increasing the cigarette tax.

We will need to find a balance of where we can cut, like tax credits and line items in agencies, and where we can bring in more revenue if we are going to balance this budget and not just kick this can down the road again.

I am interested in feedback from my constituents, so if you have any questions or comments, please email me at bergstrom@oksenate.gov.  My office can also be reached by phone at 405-521-5561.

Not the Senate from the Old Days

Capitol Considerations

A Weekly Column by Senator Micheal Bergstrom

Not the Senate of the Old Days

During this past week, a short week for the Senate since we recessed after Wednesday, we dealt with a wide variety of bills. They ranged from bills where we simply cleaned up language in statutes, to stopping or delaying tax cuts, to licensing nursing facilities, to strengthening the language in a statute that deals with the sex trafficking of minors.

As the week progressed and we came into Wednesday I realized I was not feeling well and that I might want to head out as quickly as possible.

Then I heard the news and I knew I wasn't going anywhere else for a while.

When I was told of the news reports about Senator Ralph Shortey, I was disappointed to say the least. The Oklahoma Constitution gives the Senate the ability to punish its members for disorderly behavior and it was soon decided that the Republican Senate Caucus would vote to suspend Senator Shortey.

The Senate could not allow such behavior to disrupt the business of the Senate.

That afternoon the Senate as a whole, Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to suspend Shortey. It was swift, it was fair, and it's considerably better for our state and our government than how some of the controversies of the past were dealt with.

Since that vote, the district attorney has filed charges against Shortey and leadership has asked him for his resignation from the Senate.

With that being said, it's time for prayer for the young man that Shortey was found with, for that boy's family, for Shortey's family, his wife and children, and yes, for Ralph Shortey. We do not know how all this will play out, but I'm sure each of these that I have mentioned can use God's mercy and grace and a sense of hope.

As always, I offer this for your consideration.

As always, I am interested in feedback from my constituents, so if you have any questions or comments, please email me at bergstrom@oksenate.gov. My office can also be reached by phone at 405-521-5561.

-30-

Weighing the Consequences

Capitol Considerations

A Weekly Column by Senator Micheal Bergstrom

Weighing the Consequences

Legislators should always be on the lookout for bills that protect our children.

Senate Bill 83 is one of those bills. Or at least it was.

Some might refer to the bill as the vaccination bill. Actually, it’s the “How to get out of vaccinating bill.”

Oklahoma’s vaccination rate has been declining in recent years. That means Oklahomans, and especially the children, are more likely to contract a serious disease. So Senator Ervin Yen authored a bill to remove non-medical exemptions to the vaccines mandated for school children (not all children).

In other words, if a child is to be in close proximity to perhaps hundreds of other children, he or she should be immunized against disease to protect both that child and those he or she will come in contact with.

There are those who claim that vaccinations are unsafe, or that they cause autism.

A little while back President Trump made a comment, questioning the safety of vaccinations. In response he received a letter from a few organizations telling him that they wanted to “express our unequivocal support for the safety of vaccines,” and that vaccinations “protect the health of children and adults and save lives.”

Organizations that signed the letter included the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and 132 more national organizations as well as 181 state groups. Autism organizations like the Autism Science Foundation, Autistic Self Advocacy Network and Autism Speaks also signed the letter.

In America, before we began widespread vaccinations for mumps, measles and rubella, we saw 450 adults and children die every year just from measles. That’s just one of the vaccinations we give that save millions every year from death and serious illness. The chance of someone being injured by a vaccination, not killed, is one or two per million, but when you properly vaccinate a million people for measles, you prevent 100 deaths.

Americans have a one in 165,000 chance of being struck by lightning in their lifetime. We’re more likely to be struck by lightning than suffer a vaccination injury.

And for the few who might have had an allergic reaction to a vaccination, SB 83 allows for medical exemptions.

I had an anti-vaccine individual in my office the other day. She told me that SB 83 has been gutted of the provisions that would have compelled parents of school children to get them immunized. She is correct. Then she described the current language of the bill, which requires parents to view a video that provides “information regarding the risks of not vaccinating their child and the possible medical complications resulting from vaccinations” before being exempted, as expecting too much of parents, or as she put it, “making them jump through hoops” to avoid vaccinating a child.

I told her I’m voting for the bill. I told her that if a parent wants to put his or her child in a public school without the appropriate immunizations there should be some hoops to jump through.

I recently heard from a constituent who is anti-vaccine and who told me that I didn’t get elected to vote my opinion but to vote for what my constituents want. Well, she’s right and she’s wrong. More than 90 percent of my constituents with children in the public schools have their children immunized. That seems to support my position. But even more important than that is my conscience and it compels me to vote for this bill.

As always, I am interested in feedback from my constituents, so if you have any questions or comments, please email me at bergstrom@oksenate.gov. My office can also be reached by phone at 405-521-5561.

-30-

How the State Senate Works: Part 2

Capitol Considerations

A Weekly Column by Senator Micheal Bergstrom

How the State Senate Works: Part 2

On Monday morning I was in my office just after 7:30, reading over bills again and preparing for a presentation of one of my bills in a committee later in the morning. At 9:00 I was in the education committee where there were a number of bills I needed and wanted to vote on.

Three floors down from where I sat, the general government committee convened and began debating a dozen bills. One of those bills was mine. The problem was that I didn’t want to leave the education meeting until we had wrapped up our voting, but I needed to be in general government to present my bill.

My assistant contacted the general government committee chairman and let him know I would like my bill heard near the end, and he graciously agreed.

Thank God for cellular technology.

With my phone on silent, I was able to get regular updates from Holly, my executive assistant, on what the progress was in general government.

In education, the questioning and debate on bills was like the Energizer bunny, it kept going and going and going.

Frustrating?

A little.

But our system of government in the state of Oklahoma is a wonderful thing. We get to consider, discuss and debate all of our bills, from the simplest bill to clarify language to the extremely complex, and often we will debate a bill several times before it ultimately passes or fails.

Holly texted me that she thought the general government committee was down to the last bill before I had to present.

So, what was so important in the education committee?

I had my bill, a higher education transparency bill (SB 181), but I was able to present it and get it approved early on, but there were a few other bills I wanted to see stopped in their tracks. SB 514, which seemed to be laying the groundwork for the forced consolidation of rural schools, was one of those. SB 611 would force school districts to allow students in charter schools and virtual schools to participate in all extracurricular activities including sports, and would have created serious problems. SB 627 would have taken away a school district’s option to refuse a student transfer from outside the district. SB 824 would have taken away the guarantee of full payment for a teacher’s health insurance, which is probably the most important benefit for most of Oklahoma’s teachers. Take that away and see how many more teachers leave the state.

After my last vote in education, I hurried down the three flights of steps to general government. A couple minutes later I was presenting again.

My bill passed committee.

I hurried out of the committee room and over to my office, then to a caucus meeting lunch.

I love my job.

As always, I am interested in feedback from my constituents, so if you have any questions or comments, please email me at bergstrom@oksenate.gov. My office can also be reached by phone at 405-521-5561.

-30-