CareerTech chief seeks 26% budget increase
The director of Oklahoma’s CareerTech system asked the state Senate Education Committee on Monday for a 26% funding increase for the upcoming fiscal year, citing an increased demand for the system’s services as state leaders push to produce more workforce-ready citizens.
Brent Haken, who has been on the job for about a year, told senators if they granted his budget request of $201,956,568, that would allow CareerTech to essentially wipe out most of its current waiting list – now about 7,500 students – within the next three years.
That would be a jump of $41.75 million over CareerTech’s state appropriation for the 2024 fiscal year. Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, the Senate’s Education Committee chairman, made no promises and told Haken, “We may need to ask you to come back as we debate” the amount the Senate is willing to include in the budget.
The CareerTech system offers programs and services in 29 technology center districts operating on 59 campuses, 391 pre-K through 12 comprehensive school districts, 16 skills centers campuses, and 32 adult education and family literacy providers. It’s one of the three major sectors of Oklahoma education, along with the Oklahoma State Department of Education and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Those entities will present their budget requests to legislators later this week.
The Oklahoma CareerTech system had 489,635 enrollments for the 2023 fiscal year, the most recent year for which data is available. Of those, nearly 258,000 enrollments are for industry-specific training and another 193,500 were from students from the state’s pre-K through 12 schools.
More than 42% of Oklahoma students in ninth through 12th grades were enrolled that year in at least one CareerTech class, Haken said. The system had a record number of pre-K through 12 enrollments for a second straight year. About $10 million of last year’s $22.6 million increase for CareerTech went toward funding additional secondary-school programs.
“It just seems very logical, if we’re wanting to make a difference in workforce and what the needs are for our state that we’re going to make an investment in what workforce education looks like,” said Haken, a former superintendent of Morrison Public Schools. “We know that a large portion of our workforce is going to be in skilled trade jobs. They’re going to be in health care. They’re going to be in manufacturing jobs. They’re going to be in construction jobs. Well, they need training and we are not currently meeting that need.
“The local dollars (that help fund the CareerTech system) can only go so far, so we’re going to have to make sure that we put an investment in front of our students.”
Of this year’s budget request, Haken said CareerTech would like to invest an additional $37 million into
workforce training, especially training focused on health careers ($10.5 million), construction trades ($8.1 million) and manufacturing ($7.6 million). The remainder would go toward adding programs in areas such as agriculture, arts, audio/video technology and communication, business, management and administration, education, energy, hospitality and tourism, information technology, public safety and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Haken said he believes legislators understand the need to make a large investment in CareerTech.
“The jobs available for individuals or people wanting to change careers are in trades,” he said. “They’re in demand. … We’re always going to have demand for infrastructure jobs, for construction jobs. All these trade occupations are always going to have a demand. They’re great ways to make a living for a family and to enjoy life in Oklahoma.”