House Releases This Year's Budget & Budget Transparency Portal

Budget negotiations are in full force at the state capitol, and we’re getting the first look at the state House’s budget numbers. Along with their budget priorities, the House has rolled out a new transparency portal, allowing the public to compare budget numbers between the House, Senate and governor. 

The total House budget is about $12.63 billion, a 4.21 percent decrease from fiscal year 2024. The state Senate on the other hand, released a $13.73 billion budget, a 4.15 percent increase from fiscal year 2024.

The House has also put additional tax cuts back into the equation, something Senate leaders continue to say are not in the cards this year. 

The overall agency requests came in at $13.21 billion, a 0.25 percent increase from last year.

All of these numbers, and any changes, can be accessed through the budget transparency portal, which can be found here.

“This will be an electronic digital portal accessible by anybody in the state of Oklahoma, outside of the state of Oklahoma on the world wide web,” said House Speaker Charles McCall. 

Pushing for budget transparency, the state House has pushed out a new website to track the House, Senate and governor’s budget proposals and compare the three. 

“Any way that we can incorporate more transparency is something we have always supported. This portal is just a new layer of that,” said Speaker McCall.

“Even with that flexibility we did not appropriate the full entire increase of the budget proposal,” said House Budget Chair, Rep. Kevin Wallace. 

Rep. Wallace explains the House only appropriated about 10 percent of the cash they had available to spend, putting about $4.9 billion in savings.

“But keep in mind our revenues have increased over $230 million which is a 2.71 percent increase,” said Rep. Wallace.

The biggest annual appropriation is education, which the House has set at $3.8 billion. That number is technically a 3.61 percent decrease from last year's funding, because a large part of the 2024 education dollars funded pilot programs that do not need additional funding this year.

Rep. Wallace says the overall education number is actually a $16.6 million increase from last year, money that will go towards a flex benefit allowance increase.

“The budget process can be fairly streamlined and seamless if everybody wants it to be,” said House Speaker McCall. 

Speaker McCall says a main priority for the state House will be passing a .25 percent cut to the state’s personal income tax. 

“You're going to see a theme probably within that budget that the House believes that the people in the state of Oklahoma need to get a pay raise through a tax cut,” said McCall.

Wallace says that cut is expected to cost about $96 million.

After the grocery tax cut, leadership in the Senate said additional cuts were not in the cards, but McCall says he’s not backing down.

“That's gonna be a priority when we sit down with the Senate and with the governor,” said McCall.