Among Stitt’s top budget items is what he’s dubbed the Taxpayer’s Endowment Trust Fund, a $200 million investment account meant to help grow the state’s savings in the long term and protect the state from lost revenues caused by tax cuts.
“We think it's really important that we protect this savings account and we invest it for future Oklahomans,” Stitt said. “And the legislature has agreed to provide dedicated funding sources so that account will grow to over $1 billion as a result within the next decade.”
The fund is among the largest expenditures proposed by lawmakers, next to a $250 million appropriation to maintain Medicaid services statewide – about half of what the agency requested in increased recurring funding based on their estimated cost to continue services.
Republican leaders rushed the $12.8 billion budget plan to end the legislative session early, which Democratic critics say was to allow about half the legislature to focus on their reelection campaigns, instead of addressing public needs.
Overview of proposed state budget
At a proposed $12.8 billion, the state budget Republican lawmakers unveiled Wednesday is higher than last year’s by about $160 million, but still $800 million short of what state agencies say they need for the 2027 Fiscal Year, per the House’s updated budget portal.
Besides the trust fund and the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar allocation to the Oklahoma Healthcare Authority to continue Medicaid services, lawmakers included the following big-ticket spending priorities in a handout to reporters:
- $192 million for education investments, including $2,000 teacher pay raises, increased Flex Benefits for certified and support personnel, and early reading and math intervention programs.
- $136 million for capital improvement projects like a new residence hall and classrooms at the University of Oklahoma, an Agronomy building at Oklahoma State University and a Forensics Center and Warehouse for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations (OSBI).
- $80 million for mental health access maintenance with Medicaid and consent decree spending – and a one-time allocation for research into American Sign Language needs. The State mental health department is also seeing a $49 million injection to make up for an FY 26 revenue deficit.
- $74 million for Human Services Department to cover needs like increased costs to administer federal food programs, child care teacher recruitment and retention and increasing the age children can remain in foster care to 21.
- $24.5 million for the statewide transportation infrastructure and an aerospace hangar and payload facility in Burns Flat.
- $17 million for natural resources investments like dam repairs, rural water infrastructure and Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry offices at Langston University in Lawton.
- $15 in allocations to increase state employee longevity pay and adjustments to cost-of-living pay increases.
- $15 million for a one-time expenditure related to hosting the 2028 Olympics.
- $12 million for voting software upgrades at the Oklahoma State Election Board.
Senate Pro Temp Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, said during a press conference that he’s proud of the work his, the governor’s' and the House’s fiscal teams were able to accomplish.
“I think when everybody sees the budget and what we're doing, I think we're going to be happy with it,” Paxton said.
He also emphasized a point repeatedly touted by the governor.
“Every time we cut taxes in Oklahoma, we hear the doom and gloom stories about how this is going to wreck our state budget,” He said. “We've cut taxes over and over again in our state; revenues continue to grow.”
“We do not have a revenue problem in Oklahoma. We have an expense problem,” Paxton said, adding that many of the state’s largest expenses are caused by factors out of the legislature’s control, like Congress’s mandates in their Trump-inspired “Big Beautiful” reconciliation spending bill.
The budget is focused on taking back Oklahoma’s control to spend its own money, despite federal mandates, Paxton said. Another part of the solution, he said, requires Oklahomans to vote on a series of proposed state questions lawmakers hope to add to ballots in the near future.
Like House Bill 4440, which would make Medicaid eligibility expansions passed by voters in 2020 statutory, instead of constitutional – meaning the legislature could tweak it or dismantle it, regardless of what voters chose at the ballot six years ago.
Budget transparency, Democrats’ qualms with proposed numbers
House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said this year’s budget is, to his knowledge, the earliest one ever proposed by lawmakers.
“I mention that… because we are transparently, as the Republican leadership of the state, putting out our budget,” Hilbert said. “All members of the legislature have input, and that's what culminates in the budget that you have before you today.”
But Democratic leaders in the legislature have called for multiple press conferences solely to say they and the public have largely been left out of what have mostly been closed-door discussions between Republicans.
Minority leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, said members of the Democratic Caucus have participated in the conversations as much as possible, with little impact on the actual decisions.
“We participate in all the budget hearings,” Kirt said. “We do the advanced research, we're doing all the studying. We're telling the budget chairman what we prefer. That is not public transparency.”
Kirt’s counterpart in the House, Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, seconded the grievances, adding that Democrats knew as much about the budget as the public – very little.
“Only a handful of members in both the House and Senate have been included in budget negotiations, ignoring the requests and concerns of thousands of Oklahomans who deserve representation in these meetings,” Munson said in a press release. “We are all learning of this budget deal alongside every Oklahoman—and it’s precisely why we don’t see their needs reflected in this budget, especially as federal cuts are looming.”
When reporters pressed Republican leadership about Democrats’ complaints regarding the budget process, House fiscal chairman Trey Caldwell, R-Faxon, said their statements were "grossly exaggerated.”
“From a House perspective, we have office hours posted every single Thursday, Caldwell said. “There's about six Democrat members that have actually put the work in to come and work on the budget.”
Kirt, who held a press conference immediately after Republicans announced their budget, responded directly.
“One Democrat getting to have a conversation about something specific in the budget — that is not transparency,” she said. “If the budget is out and we're going to actually have a conversation and that budget can be amended, then I will change my tune.
“But, right now, what we're seeing is something that's landed fully formed. Everything's been decided behind closed doors.”
