Hopefuls discuss issues at forum

DUNCAN — Democrat Drew Edmondson accused the Fallin administration of ravaging rural Oklahoma, and Republican Mick Cornett lamented the “broken model” of funding city services, as tax and spending matters dominated a gubernatorial forum here.

Sponsored by the Oklahoma Academy, the forum on Thursday featured candidates from all three parties and questions geared toward policy wonks, including ones about tax code reform and rural health care.

Cornett, who spent 14 years as Oklahoma City mayor, devoted most of his tax talk to the municipal angle. He said city reliance on sales tax revenue was a broken model and that only small towns with Walmarts would survive.

“Currently, cities in the state of Oklahoma get over half their revenue from the sales tax,” Cornett said. “And they spend two-thirds of that on public safety. So you can see how important that sales tax is. But it causes all sorts of planning situations with municipalities competing with each other over revenue.”

Oklahoma Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones, a Republican, cautioned that some municipal

leaders were seeking to tap property tax revenue that currently goes to counties.

“I will tell you, if there’s anything sacred in Oklahoma, people do not want their property taxes raised,” Jones said.

“And so I think that’s something we need to be real leery of before we do that.”

In an interview after the forum, Cornett referenced a legislative proposal that would have allowed cities to create public safety districts and raise property tax revenue to pay salaries for firefighters and police. But he said he wasn’t calling for tax hikes.

“We have to fund public safety at the end of the day,” Cornett said. “And if we had more ways to fund public safety, that would be a step in the right direction.”

The Oklahoma primaries are June 26.

Edmondson, who served 16 years as attorney general, used a question about the health of rural communities to rip into Republican rule under Gov. Mary Fallin, who has been in office since 2011 and can’t run for re-election because of term limits.

“Nowhere has been hit harder by the failed policies of the last seven years and four months than rural Oklahoma,” Edmondson said.

“One-fifth of our school districts have gone to four-day weeks. Most of them are in rural Oklahoma. Hospitals have declared bankruptcy, most of them in rural Oklahoma.

Nursing homes are declaring bankruptcy, most of them in rural Oklahoma. “The decision not to opt into the Medicaid expansion — which was an intentional decision, sending hundreds of millions of our dollars to other states instead of spending them on health care in Oklahoma — has cost our medical providers dearly and jeopardized health care in rural Oklahoma.”

Fallin’s spokesman declined to respond on Friday.

Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb, a Republican, claimed states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act now regret it. He said rural health care in Oklahoma would soon get a boost in federal matching money.

“That will give an additional $50 million to rural hospitals, $37 million to rural nursing homes and an additional, I think, $11 million to other entities that treat and have integrated services for mental health, developmental disabilities,” Lamb said.

“It’s going to be a game changer to help and assist rural Oklahoma. And it’s long overdue.”

Jones said, “We have cut the provider rate to the point that people are trying to decide whether they really want to do business. That’s both in hospitals and nursing homes, as well. Yes, I’m glad we’re going to get more money from the federal government. We only get that as along as we have (state) matching dollars. If we continue to cut the revenue stream and don’t replace it, we won’t have those matching dollars.”

Republican Gary Richardson, of Tulsa, said any tax code revisions should await detailed audits of state departments.

“Once we audit, we’ll know what we have and what we can do with it,” Richardson said.

Richardson also called for reducing “administrative bloat” in schools and questioned why voters in the Owasso school district approved twice as much money for athletic field turf as for textbooks.

“We’ve got to use good reasoning,” he said.

All three Libertarian candidates for governor appeared at the forum.

Joe Maldonado, of Wynnewood, who will be on the primary ballot as Joe Exotic, said marijuana would bring in revenue for the state. He said local governments should be able to sell “all confiscated weed” and keep the proceeds.

Libertarian candidate Chris Powell, of Bethany, asked whether there were any Libertarians in the audience. After a woman raised her hand, Powell said he hoped he would have her vote.

“You can’t have that vote,” Libertarian candidate Rex Lawhorn, of Broken Arrow, said. “That’s my mother.”