New Education Dollars Fund Same Old Corruption
John Michener
1. OCPAC Voter Guide
2. The Conservative Index
3. Baked-In Corruption
4. Tax Hikes Unnecessary
5. New Education Dollars Fund Same Old Corruption
6. OCPAC Program
1. The OCPAC Voter Guide is here for the primary election on 26 June 2018! A detailed email with all the picks will go out next week, but until then you can access the OCPAC Voter Guide on our website. The guide has been updated with several new picks, endorsements, and additional information since last week. Make sure to share it with your friends.
2. The 2018 Oklahoma Conservative Index is now available at The Oklahoma Constitution newspaper’s website. See how conservative your senator and representative are by comparing their votes to a truly conservative standard.
3. Baked-In Corruption: The Need to Reform Boards and Commissions. This special report from the 1889 Institute points out that legislatures have gotten into the habit of allowing special interests to regulate their own interests. They create boards and commissions whose statutorily-required memberships automatically suffer conflicts of interest. In other words, they create governance structures where conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and groupthink are baked-in from the beginning. Regarding the recent scandal at the Oklahoma Health Department, it has been reported that three Health Department board members took a hands-off approach to their oversight duties because they considered themselves “passionate advocates of healthcare.” Nothing could more eloquently describe the soft corruption of board members doing nothing to protect taxpayers.
4. Tax Hikes Unnecessary. Besides being morally wrong, tax hikes are not even necessary to fund our grossly bloated and inappropriate state government. The legalized plunder is going swimmingly according to our State Treasurer.
5. New Education Dollars Fund Same Old Corruption. The Legislature appropriated more money to education, but many districts are planning to redirect the money away from the Legislature’s intended recipients to overpaid administrators, according to a recent Senate press release. The following is excerpted from the release, which features commentary by Sen. Rob Standridge:
Senator Rob Standridge and other legislators are growing concerned after hearing plans by multiple districts that want to give their administrators pay raises meant for support staff. The legislators want to ensure the pay raises are dispersed correctly and want to encourage the public to hold local school boards and administrators accountable as these decisions are made in the next few weeks and months.
“I’m extremely concerned that districts are wanting to use the support staff raises for administrative staff,” said Standridge. “The intent of House Bill 1026 was to provide a raise for those support staff who typically have the lowest pay in a district, who work closely with students during the nine months of school, including cafeteria workers, janitors, building assistants and secretaries. It was definitely not intended for school districts’ highest paid employees, which are administrators.”
“The legislation for support personnel was never intended for employees within school administration, most of which are some of the highest paid employees in a district, and many within administration are also certified, allowing them to already take advantage of the certified school personnel raise,” said Standridge. “Any decisions on how these monies would be used or misused are decided by local school boards and administration, and I would encourage citizens to contact those responsible and ensure these dollars are going where the legislature intended.”
The state legislature appropriates funds (this year it was $2.9 billion) to the State Department of Education (SDE). That agency then distributes funds to the various school districts based on various calculations. It is then the responsibility of the local school boards and administrators to decide how to utilize those funds. While some funds have to be spent on certain areas such as building improvements, others can be spent however the school board and superintendent see fit. These are and should be local decisions, including pay rates for their employees.
“Some in the public think that the legislature controls how education funds are spent, but this isn’t the case. I think it was eye-opening for teachers and parents from different districts to hear stories of how other districts spent their unencumbered funds on Chromebooks, new furniture, raises for teachers and other staff, and so forth, while their school boards were using funds to raise superintendent or administrative pay,” said Standridge. “The bottom line is that it is the local school boards and administrators who make the majority of financial decisions as to how to spend their funds, and it’s up to local citizens to hold them accountable for those decisions.”
“I’d urge Oklahomans to attend school board meetings and see how your tax dollars are being spent. Your school and your school district are local to you, and although the focus has been on state government and teacher unions, it is very important to know how your tax dollars are spent in your community.”
6. OCPAC Program. On Wednesday, June 13, at noon at Mama Roja, we will complete our final candidate interviews before the primary elections.
The views expressed in this email are the personal opinion of John Michener and do not necessarily reflect the views of OCPAC, its leadership team, or its members…although they should. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee. Authorized and paid for by Oklahoma Conservative PAC, PO Box 2021, Edmond, OK 73083.