Randy Krehbiel
Tulsa World Staff Writer
Gross: Prospects for Gov. Kevin Stitt’s tax cut likely were not helped by last week’s gross revenue report.
Total tax payments to the state were almost 9% lower in August than for the same month a year ago, continuing a recent trend, state Treasurer Todd Russ said.
Gross revenue consists of all taxes paid to the state, including those collected on behalf of local governments and money later returned to taxpayers as rebates or refunds.
The drop was almost entirely attributable to a 60% decline in oil and gas taxes. The state’s two largest revenue sources, income and sales and use taxes, rose slightly by less than the rate of inflation.
Other tax categories were slightly lower.
Pass/fail: The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s affiliation with the controversial PragerU teaching aids and asked that it be withdrawn.
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“Oklahoma can do better by its students than serving them hate content from PragerU,” said CAIR-Oklahoma Executive Director Adam Soltani in a press release. “PragerU’s founder was rebuked for falsely claiming that swearing an oath on the Quran ‘undermines American civilization,’ and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Despite its name, PragerU is not an accredited educational institution of any kind. It produces videos that tell children such things as slavery wasn’t all that bad and burning carbon isn’t really very damaging to the atmosphere.
When Tulsa-based news site Black Wall Street Times asked the OSDE about criticism of the affiliation, a spokesman refused comment, saying BWST Editor Nehemiah Frank had been too “inflammatory” in his personal commentary on state Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters.
Meanwhile, Walters’ national presence continued to grow with another appearance on Heritage Foundation President Kevin Robert’s podcast, which Walters apparently recorded in the Heritage Foundation offices in Washington.
Roberts praised Walters for being “on the front lines” against the “woke elites in charge of America’s education system (who) want to destroy children’s innocence, parents’ rights, and communities’ authority over their schools” — a description some Tulsans might find ironic given Walters’ threats against their district.
Walters took credit for recruiting “over 800 teachers” to the state while overcoming opposition from within the Department of Education “a press corps that is doing all they can to undermine your administration.”
Ouch: Stitt’s choice of former Cherokee councilmember Wes Nofire as a tribal liaison hasn’t gone over well with the tribal governments with whom he’s supposed to liaison.
No one, however, has been more pointed than Cherokee Council Speaker Mike Shambaugh.
“Custer had his scouts. Governor Stitt has Wes Nofire,” the usually taciturn Shambaugh wrote in the Cherokee Phoenix.
On-line: The Biden administration approved $167.7 million to connect 20,000 Oklahoma homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet through a competitive grant program administered by the state.
The program is intended to bring high-speed service to areas where it has historically been cost prohibitive due to population density and geographic constraints
Dark parks: In what is likely a first, the state Tourism Department is marketing its state parks in southeastern Oklahoma as ideal spots to watch next spring’s solar eclipse.
According to the department, Talimena, Wister and Beavers Bend state parks will experience a total eclipse on April 8, and three others will be 99% blacked out.
Beavers Bend will be in the dark 4 minutes, 15 seconds, one of the longest in the eclipse’s path.
Campaigns and elections: Bixby Mayor Brian Guthrie said he is a candidate for the state Senate District 25 seat being vacated by Sen. Joe Newhouse, R-Broken Arrow.
Guthrie, also a Republican, joins state Rep. Jeff Boatman, R-Tulsa, as declared candidates in the heavily Republican district that includes parts of Tulsa, Bixby and Broken Arrow.
In a similar vein, two Republicans have registered campaigns for the state Senate District 21 seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Dugger.
Although SD 21 is usually thought of as a Stillwater seat, both early candidates list Perkins addresses.
Jason Schilling is a former Perkins mayor who works for Cowboy Dining, a food service auxiliary of Oklahoma State University. He finished third in a three-way GOP primary for House District 33 in 2018.
Kurt Murray is an agriculture education program specialist with the Oklahoma Department of Career Tech.
Right face: Oklahoma has the second-most conservative legislature in the country, according C-PAC. The Washington-based conservative organization ranked the state just behind West Virginia and about even with Tennessee.
Hawaii ranked least conservative on the C-PAC scale.
- Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa World
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