Walters called an “emergency” press conference Friday morning to complain about the legislature’s stance on income taxes.
The budget deal was announced Wednesday and includes an income tax cut of a quarter of a percent and eliminates three lower tax brackets. But Walters said that’s not good enough.
“We’re expecting the taxpayers of Oklahoma to continue paying income taxes while they’re trying to make ends meet in this economy,” Walters said. “I think that’s ridiculous. I think that’s absurd. I think that there’s plenty of time to get back to work and provide real tax relief for families.”
Walters said he wants Oklahoma to have no income tax, and eventually, no property tax.
He said he wants less money to go to the State Department of Education, seemingly at odds with big-ticket budget requests he made this year to the legislature, like $3 million for classroom Bibles. According to the budget agreement, Walters’ agency will see a 3.15% increase. $25 million of new money will be going to the state funding formula for schools.
Asked if Walters believed schools did not need or should not have been given more funding, he said he was “fine with the way that we’re funding education.”
“The funds are there, the funds to fund public schools, it’s there,” Walters said earlier in the press conference. “ … What I’m talking about is eliminating government spending from the bureaucratic level. So what we’ve got to look at right now when you look at all the money flowing through every agency: cut, cut, cut, cut.”
Walters said money from tax cuts should be made up with doing away with administrative and bureaucratic positions, touting the steep job cuts made at his agency during his tenure.
“We dramatically slashed the [OSDE] budget,” Walters said. “We fired individuals. … We did a full funding freeze, we did a full spending freeze, hiring freeze. We said we’re going to analyze how many jobs we need. Guess what? We didn’t need about 150 of those.”
It is unclear how many state employee positions could be cut before essential services would be impacted, or if it would be enough to make up the difference if the state zeroed out its income tax.
Last month, news investigations revealed large payouts to OSDE staff, including a $45,000 check to Chief Policy Advisor Matt Langston and a final paycheck of more than $75,000 for outgoing Director of Communications Dan Isett. Asked about the payouts, Walters said the agency was paying “based on merit.”
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Walters’ calls for a new budget deal.
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