State Senators Clark Jolly and Susan Paddack, along with State Representatives Scott Martin and Scott Inman addressed questions posed to them by the Parent Legislative Action Committee in a panel Tuesday in Edmond.

PLAC organizers, including parents and educators, synthesized all their complaints into a simple two part problem and then formulated four questions to the legislators most involved in education appropriations.

"We were able to wrap our hands around two major issues that we are seeing in our classroom and it boiled down to there’s too little funding and too much testing in our classrooms," said Meredith Exline, PLAC organizer. "Our goal at the PLAC is to educate parents and patrons in a nonpartisan way on what is happening at a legislative level."

The four questions posed to the legislators were as follows:

1. What are your expectations for funding of common education in this session? How do you propose to make education a funding priority and to increase funding in any way with the news of $170 million less to appropriate this year?

2. Since the Supreme Court struck down last session’s tax cut and with the news of less revenue and the immediate needs of funding in education, public safety and human services, do you think this is the year to put forward another income tax cut?

3. When horizontal drilling was a new and emerging practice, the idea of incentivizing that practice made sense, but now that 90 percent of new drilling is done that way do you believe that the state needs to continue the costly incentive – as it has been reported that this incentive may be costing the state almost $300 million next year?

4. We realize that the last 10 years have had some significant revenue declines but some areas of government have fared much better over this time. How would you defend the fact that common education’ percentage of total state appropriations has declined from 38.2 percent in 2004 to 33.4 percent last year? That decline shows that our children’s education is not the state’s top funding priority it used to be.

While not every legislator answered each question directly, they all tried to give a view of the issues education was facing and how they planned to deal with it.

Sen. Jolly, chairperson of the appropriations committee for the Oklahoma State Senate, began by vocalizing his primary issues with education in the state.

"I despise the way we test. I’ve been trying to change it for years. Hopefully we will be able to get there, but the way we test makes no sense at all because it needs to inform as learning testing is a vital component for educators."

Clark went on to say funding does need to increase but more importantly, the funds needs to better managed how they are spent.

"We have to both put money into the classroom and into the reforms," Clark said. "If we expect the reforms but are not willing to fund them, then that’s unfair."

Sen. Paddack, a member of both the appropriations committee and the appropriations subcommittee for education, addresses what she sees as a problem with priorities.

"I believe that if we get our priorities straight, we will fund education… we will find those dollars."

Paddack agreed that the tax cuts on horizontal drilling are no longer necessary. She said that the franchise tax and tax cuts set for 2014 but the courts overturned all leave money on the table that could be funneled into education.

Rep. Martin, chair of the appropriations and budget for the Oklahoma House, focused on the numbers.

"Common education is almost triple the size of the next agency below it," he said. "It is certainly a good 20 percent above higher education and the health care portion [of the state appropriations budget]."

While he admitted that there may have been areas where the state can generate more money for education, he maintained that overall it is clear that education is a huge priority.

"We’re not doing so badly," Martin said. "When you compare us to this state or that state, yeah we want to do better and achieve more."

Rep. Inman, the Democratic minority leader for the Oklahoma House and represents Del City, said there is a real issue in money but it is not the primary problem.

"My number one goal as an elected official on approving public education is trying to solve the problem of lack of parental involvement," Inman said.

He went on to say that funding doesn’t look great for this year and commented this fact will affect education.

"We’re looking at a year where we have $170 million less to spend. What does that mean? Well, if you’re in common education you have to brace for a cut."

Each legislator attempted to address the crowd with honesty yet they made no overtly claims or promises. They all said they are addressing the issues, yet despite knowledge of the problems, there is still a lack of money this year.

They remain hopeful for common education money to rise but only time will tell.

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