Capitol Update from Representative Ken Luttrell

The Fiscal Year 2023 state budget agreement was announced this week, and there are a lot of exciting highlights for the citizens of our district! I’ve been working diligently to ensure that the final budget would address the concerns we have been hearing from our constituents, specifically in the areas of concurrent enrollment and career tech funding. I’m also pleased to see that sweeping measures that I co-authored to better regulate the medical marijuana industry are on their way to the governor’s desk as we draw closer to the end of session.

I wanted to point out some specific pieces of the budget that I was particularly happy to see included. Those are:

 

• Funding law enforcement at record levels
• Eliminating the years-long developmentally disabled services waiting list
• Fighting federal overreach
• Making generational investments in economic development, especially in rural areas
• Continuing to fund public K-12 schools at the highest level in state history, $3.2B on top of billions of dollars in federal pandemic aid and surging local property tax revenues in many school districts
• Higher education receiving $873M, including a $60.6M, or 7%, state appropriation increase, the largest increase to colleges and universities in recent history

I’m proud of the open and transparent budgeting process that we have here in the House which allows citizens to be involved at every step of the process through their representatives who serve on appropriation and budget subcommittees. We still have more work to do before we adjourn for the year sometime next week.

That’s it for this week! If I can help you with anything, feel free to call my Capitol office at (405) 557-7355 or email me at [email protected].

Ken Luttrell represents District 37 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, which includes parts of Kay and Osage counties.