Oklahoma Braces for Wintry Mix, Dangerous Cold This Week
Oklahoma is bracing for more winter weather this week.
The National Weather Service in Norman forecasts a wintry mix for a large portion of the state, along with frigid temperatures.
Meteorologist Nolan Meister says the Oklahoma City metro area has a chance of seeing freezing precipitation as early as Tuesday morning.
"Travel impacts will likely begin around daybreak on Tuesday and may last into mid-evening. Especially with how cold temperatures are going to be, roads won’t melt very fast," Meister said.
The other danger to watch for: extreme cold. The Weather Service says highs won’t make it out of the teens midweek, and wind chills could be as cold as -25 degrees.
The highest snow totals will likely be across northern Oklahoma, with ice being more of a concern for areas south of I-40 before transitioning to snow later on Tuesday.
See the latest weather information from the National Weather Service's website.
Oklahoma Tax Commission Seeks to Recover $5 Million from Taxpayers Over Parental Choice Program Errors
The Oklahoma Tax Commission is trying to clawback $5 million from more than 1,800 taxpayers over payments made through the Parental Choice Tax Credit program.
An investigation by the Tulsa World found the OTC is attempting to recapture tax credit payments from families whose students did not attend a qualifying school for all or part of the tax year.
Public records also reveal the OTC allowed its $4 million yearly contract with its third-party management vendor, Merit International, to quietly expire.
Merit is credited with errors like double-paying schools and families and months-long delays in payments. The OTC is now managing the program.
The news comes as Gov. Kevin Stitt calls for a removal of the cap on the tax credit program.
A bill by Bartlesville Senator Julie Daniels would do just that, but it has not yet been heard in committee.
Gov. Stitt Appoints Marc Nuttle to Lead Department of Government Efficiency
Gov. Kevin Stitt has tapped Norman attorney Marc Nuttle to lead the Oklahoma Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE.
DOGE is an effort to improve the efficiency of state agencies and reduce the number of state employees.
Nuttle will start his position with DOGE immediately. He is tasked with submitting a report to Stitt outlining agency budgets and recommending changes by the end of March.
Stitt laid out his goals for DOGE in a recent Newsmax interview.
“I’m committed to having fewer state employees when I leave office than when I took over in 2019. We’re looking at contracts, we're using AI to help us look at all these contracts that need to be canceled," Stitt said.
Numbers from the Oklahoma Office of Management Enterprise Services show state employment – excluding higher education – has been relatively flat during Stitt’s tenure.
Since he took office in 2019, the number has fluctuated. But there are about 600 more state employees now than the governor’s first year in office.
Oklahoma Board of Equalization Estimates $12.3B Budget for FY 2026
The Oklahoma Board of Equalization released its official Fiscal Year 2026 certified budget estimation Friday. Lawmakers are looking at authorizing about $12.3 billion in certified funds.
That’s about $120 million less than what the legislature dished out last year for fiscal year 2025, and about $1 billion off from what state agencies are asking for heading into the new fiscal year, which starts in July.
Still, State Treasurer Todd Russ, who sits on the board, says sales tax revenues are doing better than expected.
"After the sales tax reports from the grocery tax, we dropped off, I think I'm guessing 160 million or something like that. Estimated about three. The next month we saw that come back up and we were almost right the range that we'd started out at," Russ said.
Russ says income tax and natural gas production revenues are also up.
He says calculating the estimated state budget allocations year over year hides Oklahoma's steady growth in revenue.
He says a five-year average, used to calculate other parts of the budget, is more telling.
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