Author: gary-watts@sbcglobal.net

One of the advantages of being a Geezer is being excused for certain lapses in memory so I’m going to claim “The secret to happiness is low expectations.” as an original thought I had and espoused well before the dates of attribution that show on search engine results. Originality doesn’t matter, the substance does. When I look back on my life as Geezers often do, I see so many relationships, particularly family, and events that must exceed the expectations of most with whom I’ve shared this planet. So my original thought hasn’t resulted in living a life of mediocrity or disappointment, but it has left me without much of a bucket list (I prefer Jerry Seinfeld’s “$%&!-it” list anyhow).

For example, after my first born Ethan and I scaled Wheeler Peak, the high point of New Mexico in 1987 and Linda found Fifty State Summits, a book by Paul Zumwalt, I embarked on a quest to summit as many as I could, believing a one point that would be somewhere between 45 and 49 since I didn’t plan to die on Denali. I had much fun, usually with Linda, sometimes alone, often with friends, making it to forty with the last being Britton Hill in Florida 25 years later. As life developed and the remaining high points each presented their own special challenges, I realized my goal all along had been to summit 40 of the 50 high points so I’ve not attempted any more. And there it stands, many fun memories and no regret.

When this pandemic began in March I realized the time it afforded at home in the early summer would be perfect to check off the only item on my bucket list–to build a back yard Rube Goldberg machine. The rule I set for myself, which puts more formal competitions to shame, is that a true RGM must be built entirely from stuff you already have, i.e. no new purchases can be made or money spent. My effort was wildly successful, gave me great pleasure over the month or so of construction and testing and quality time with our wonderful family. Below is a link to the YouTube production crafted by my grandson seen here at the Jersey Shore a year ago with his twin sister who was my key grip’s best babe on the project.

Here is the YouTube link. If as when I watched it, you first see our only (not wise to tempt fate) successful run; then followed by I don’t know what will come because I don’t know how You Tube works. Here is another You Tube link to our earlier version which showed areas needing improvement (back yard engineering), again followed by…I don’t know how YouTube works.

Here’s another we produced in honor of friend Betty Coleman’s 90th birthday.

As always lunch is on me for the first to ID the above thinker photo location which shows a feature that, when it was first installed years ago, once was a kind of perpetual RGM itself and was mesmerizing to watch. Alas, it stopped working, though is still nice to see. Lunch can be your fave carryout which you are welcome to consume, or not, on our porch.

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That’s the title to the book written by Marty Makary, M. D. who was the speaker at the Fall, 2019 annual whoop de do put on by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.  I heard part of a Rich Fisher interview with Dr. Makary on our Tulsa Public Radio station.  He made much sense describing the insanity that is pricing, billing and paying for health care in our country, much like was done several years ago in A Bitter Pill.  So when I heard at the end he is coming to Oklahoma at the invitation of the OCPA I knew there had to be a catch. 

The danger and joy with Nook books is the ease of acquiring, so later that same day I was quickly reading through to learn the rest of the story—I didn’t.  Here’s what I did learn.  The Price We Pay is a fascinating and effective anecdotal, not analytical, description of much of what is wrong with our health care system.  If you’ve never experienced mishaps like I describe in my post Dennis not the Menace then you are lucky and may not understand what all the fuss is about health care financing in our nation, so read this book.  It will make your blood boil with descriptions of the problem, but won’t give you the answer.  Unless you already have preconceptions, as I do, then you can find it as I did.

I don’t recall if it is his first outrageous example, but around page 22 I made note where a hospital in the United States quotes $150,000 for bypass surgery, then when the potential patient balks at the cost eventually comes down to $25,000.  So the patient goes to France and has it done for $15,000.  If I were Dr. Makary I’d spend a little time investigating how health care is provided and financed in France—but he doesn’t show that curiosity, unless I skipped over it.  What is obvious to many of us, and so eloquently stated by my friend Carlton James (see my post Looking for Mr. James) is apparently lost on Dr. Makary. 

He continues giving example after example of how outrageously silly and harmful our health care system is in so many ways, interspersed with examples of how markets sometimes seem to work, as around page 40 with elective procedures as an example—duh—a medical market virtue I addressed as irrelevant to the broader discussion in my post Spoonful of Sugar.  Which is why I read his description of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma with skepticism expecting that it is all about elective procedures.  I was wrong and it truly appears to be a fascinating outlier, like other providers appearing here and there in The Price We Pay, in our crazy system.  Fair, transparent and market-based pricing still doesn’t obviate the need for insurance coverage—we’re not talking about a $500 car repair bill a modest emergency savings should handle—because few of us can pay out of pocket for child birth $12,000 or a hip replacement $15,000, much less a lumbar fusion, two levels, whatever the heck that is, at $50,000—all prices from the Surgery Center of Oklahoma’s website.

 He visits a hospital administrator in Nebraska that is making money while not playing the game of charging multiples of actual cost then giving insurers huge discounts.  It will discount 4% and that’s it.  Medicare and Medicaid make up a normal part of its business and, unlike the usual whining from hospital administrators and government haters like the OCPA, it doesn’t lose money on those patients.

A favorite chapter of mine is the one on flight ambulances, a notorious source of examples where patients and insurance companies are over charged with the patient (remember they made a rational decision for a flight ambulance to save their life…not) usually holding the bag.  Unless the patient’s health insurance is one of those bad, wasteful government run single payers—Medicare or Medicaid.  He finds they don’t get gouged, so duh???, why not good enough for everyone.  Relying on buyers to check price gouging sellers when the buyers have suffered a traumatic health event and may even be unconscious is just plain silly, if not stupid.  It’s a classic example of the kind of market that should be regulated or controlled by a single payer with enough market clout.

The author at one point compares insurance brokers to the mortgage bundlers/sellers who fueled the subprime mortgage failures that led to the Great Recession of 2008 (doesn’t seem so Great today).  What he doesn’t say or explore is how through government regulation strengthened or kept in place that catastrophe could have been avoided.  So of course he makes no mention of a role for government regulation in cleaning up what bothers him with health insurance brokers.

Toward the end he declares that the diet wars are over, that it has been proven there are no benefits to a low fat diet—say what?  He even blames low fat advocacy for the obesity epidemic—wow, here he lost me.  Just Google up my diet man, Dr. Dean Ornish, if you want my version of the truth.  No, the diet wars are not over and low fat doesn’t cause obesity.

He partially redeems himself by pointing out toward the end that Salk and Sabin refused to make money on the polio vaccine—probably because they recognized the overwhelming public good involved and knew monetizing it would send the wrong market signals.  But the author ends with a call to more transparent and efficient markets and thus ends a book supposedly contributing to the public discussion about health care policy and not once mentions universal health care, single payer or Medicare for all—all ideas and policy proposals that exist specifically because of the broken system he documents so well. 

So it goes; hope the food was good for the fellows of the OCPA last fall. Remember to vote for Medicaid expansion June 30; or if you vote absentee I’ll happily notarize your ballot. As always, a lunch or pizza on me for the first to ID the photo site.

OK, we’ve been watching the Ken Burns documentary, “The Roosevelts”. I intended to resume more regular critiques of the “research” by the limited thinkers at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and have been too distracted to do so till now.  Over the first two and a half years of this blog I posted about 60 times doing just that, which I summarized in Dirty Dozen Data Drivelers over a year ago.   I needed a break as one can only read so much of shoddy research and analysis like that produced by the OCPA without it causing feelings of frustration and despair.  Besides, much of their work during that time was to convince the public and policy makers that teachers should not receive a pay increase.  They failed; teachers received two consecutive years of raises, and the OCPA lost a great deal of relevance. 

While public education remains the greatest responsibility of our state government, not far behind is providing for access to adequate health care for all Oklahomans.  This issue is now front and center as the successful Initiative Petition effort has State Question 802 for Medicaid expansion on the statewide ballot set for June 30. 

The effort gathered more than 300,000 signatures, the most ever in our state.  If approved Oklahoma will join 36 other states in expanding Medicaid coverage to more of its residents, about 200,000, under the federal Affordable Care Act that has been available since 2014 but was prevented by our Republican legislators and governors. 

Here is information about the effort from the Oklahoma Policy Institute—a real think tank, not a stink tank like the OCPA—and from the Yes on 802 support organization.  I have posted several times previously on related matters and believe this is a matter of universal health care being good public policy. The United Nations has proclaimed that universal health care is a human right. 

Around 1965 we decided that our population over age 65 should have health insurance which addressed the market reality that few in that age category could expect coverage in a “market based” model of insurance, i.e. old people are just too costly.  I wonder how many of the geezers and old geezers on the OCPA’s board of directors rant and rave about the “ne’er do wells” of working age not deserving Medicaid coverage, but would also rant and rave if anyone tried to take away their Medicare coverage which in fact is being paid for by many of those “ne’er do wells” they would keep uninsured.

In my opinion, if our nation has the resources to provide insurance for old people who are past their years of real productivity (and if you think we Medicare recipients paid in enough to cover ourselves already, then why is the Medicare fund on the verge of insolvency?), then it has the resources to provide health insurance for those of, or soon to be, working age who are adding to the nation’s production, wealth and the Medicare trust fund.  So it behooves us to invest in the good health and productivity of those who are making it happen, more so than for those of us who are no longer contributing. 

Therefore, I will take a deep breath and, as painful as it will be, start checking out the OCPA’s website again looking particularly for their drivel in opposition to expansion of Medicaid, where they will try to justify the policy decision of our state Republican party to turn its back on over $1 billion the last six years—yes they believe our state, that is already a net taker of federal funds because of its relative poverty compared to our coastal sister states, is rich enough to turn its back on that funding and send money to Washington to fund health insurance for Massachusetts, New York and California…not.  Enjoy and support SQ 802 Medicaid expansion by voting yes on June 30.

As always, lunch is on me for the first to ID the photo location.

When I learned recently that my second cousin Ginny took a new job with the Cooper Clinic in the Dallas area, I sent her this message: 

• Ginny,

We heard from your parents and hadn’t understood who your new employer is.  Kenneth Cooper saved my father’s life.  You may have heard this story but I never tire of telling it.  While Clayton and I were away at college and/or starting our lives after college, late ’60s, early 70s, Dad (late forties) was diagnosed with severe heart disease.  He had angina so intense he could not walk around our block.  This was before bypass surgery was done; today it would be a no-brainer.  Fortunately, his cardiologist recommended Cooper’s Aerobics program.  Dad was very disciplined in everything he did so he faithfully followed the program working his way from slow walks to actually running miles at a time.  Linda and I returned to live in Tulsa with our new son Ethan summer of 1973.  Early fall that year, Dad challenged Clayton and me to a “race”.  We went to the high school track and the ground rules were that Dad would run the quarter mile laps without stopping and Clayton and I would run with him by relaying every other lap.  I think we both made 3 or 4 laps before being exhausted and unable to continue, meaning Dad had run 1.5 to 2 miles.  When we could not continue and conceded his victory, he ran one more lap just because.  He made his point; I started that week and now 47 years later can honestly say that I have faithfully and continuously maintained aerobic fitness as recommended by Cooper.  Dad and I ran the first 15K Tulsa Run together in 1978 and a few more after that till he switched to biking.  I ran in every one (or the same distance if out of town) for 30 years.  My 30-year medallion given to all participating that year is with Dad now.  Cooper saved my father from a certain heart attack death; allowed him to enjoy grandchildren and great grandchildren, travel and physical activity for many years, a quality of life not enjoyed by many.  When he finally did have bypass surgery, I think in his early 70s, the surgeon reported that his blockage had been almost total likely for decades and it was the collateral circulation built up through exercise that kept him going.  I tell this story whenever I can, hoping that Dad’s example might inspire someone else as he did me–all because of Kenneth Cooper’s pioneering work.  So, I am proud of your work and the opportunity you and your coworkers have to help other people make a difference in their lives.  I think we may have an early Aerobics paperback–if I find it would you be interested?

Gary 

Here are the three of us at the Hale track after the relay that day:

Here’s her reply:

Hi Gary,

So nice to hear from you! I totally remember that about Uncle Herb. I told Dr. Cooper that afternoon I got hired. I am so proud to be working there. Being the Director of the Nutrition Department there is the cherry on the Sundae of my career. Dr Cooper just celebrated his 89 birthday and he still sees some patients. His son Tyler is an MD MPH and is the President and CEO. 

Thanks for sharing this. There are so many stories like this here! 

Hope you all are doing well! 

Ginny
Me with Dr. Cooper in his office 10/19

Post Script:

Check out my related Post Crybabies which also has my all time fave thinker photo. And what’s with the flying saucer on his wall?

About a year or two into my new training I decided to go to another track and check my time running a mile. I had thought my average time was a little under 8 minutes a mile, so I was shocked–and pleased–when I easily clocked a 6 minute mile at the track. If I just kept training I was sure to be some kind of running phenomenon! The track was at Will Rogers High School where a fellow Hale Rangers Class of 1965 was basketball coach so I called him to report my success as a further reality check. He chuckled over the phone and said, “Gary, it’s a fifth (1/5) of a mile track so it takes five laps to make a mile, not the four you ran.” I was sad when that track was replaced years later with the standard quarter mile version.

As always lunch is on me for the first to ID the thinker photo location.

Yesterday this article appeared in the Tulsa World:

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/some-see-overkill-in-covid–risk-containment-measures-despite/article_821ae10d-1be7-5a82-a784-37f5282d3b4f.html

It features comments from a blog post on the 1889 Institute’s (an Oklahoma Stink Tank) website by Byron Schlomach.  I am quite familiar with Mr. Schlomach’s sloppy work about which I’ve written before:

Later, Sooner

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

A Rise By Any Other Name

Not wanting limited thinker Schlomach to spout more drivel unchallenged, I penned this letter to the World’s Editor:

Whether or not closing all state schools for the rest of the school year is good public policy is worthy of thoughtful consideration and debate.  However, beware of listening to Byron Schlomach of the 1889 Institute for reliable information to inform that debate.  In the run up to the Oklahoma Legislature’s  historic vote in 2018 to increase teacher pay, Schlomach argued repeatedly against the increase and supported his arguments by inflating average teacher pay by thousands of dollars and statewide school district expenditures by hundreds of millions.  He also demonstrated he does not know the difference between an arithmetic and a geometric progression—understanding critical to estimating the costs of a pandemic.  I’ll trust the numbers of “well intentioned health experts” any day over those provided by Schlomach.

Stay safe.  I will continue to follow the advice of “well intentioned health experts” and pay little attention to the drivel coming from Stink Tank inhabitants like Schlomach.

A carry out pizza on me for the first to ID the photo location.

Summary

The Oklahoma State Department of Education (“OSDE”) has misconstrued the statutory provision for the calculation of State Aid at Title 70, Section 200.1(D)(1)(b) resulting in an improper reduction of Foundation Aid for 215 school districts statewide that totals $1,606,108 in the current 2020 fiscal year and, if repeated, will reduce their Foundation Aid in the 2021 fiscal year by an additional $19,273,292, for a total loss of $20,879,400 from the state aid they are entitled to receive by law. 

Background

Motor vehicle collections are the third largest source of revenue for the general funds of Oklahoma school districts, and the greatest of the dedicated revenues that are included as Foundation Program income in the calculation of state aid.  The Oklahoma Tax Commission (“OTC”) wrongly construed a 2015 amendment to Title 47 so that motor vehicle collections were underpaid to 271 school districts and overpaid to 146 from August, 2015 through August, 2017. 

After formal requests for the OTC to correct its error were refused, eight underpaid school districts commenced legal action in March and June, 2016 resulting in a December, 2016 order by the District Court of Oklahoma County granting relief to the Plaintiffs only and ordering the correct application of the statute going forward.  The OTC appealed and the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals in February, 2018 expanded the order to include all school districts requiring the OTC to recalculate and determine the correct payments that should have been made for collections from July, 2016 through August, 2017 and to “base the apportionment of motor vehicle collections on the recalculated amounts for the July 1, 2016 to August 25, 2017, time period.”  This order was sustained by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June, 2018 and the OTC completed the recalculations in August, 2018.

Citing the 2017 legislative amendment to the Title 47 apportionment law, effective with August, 2017 collections, the OTC declined to take any further action in response to the order.  Therefore, the Plaintiffs asked the District Court for further relief, over the objection of the OTC, resulting in the November, 2018 order for correcting payments that is now being implemented.  The amounts of overpayments for the 146 districts and underpayments for the 271 districts, totaling $22,797,480.81, are to be corrected over thirteen monthly payments, the first having been made in February, 2018.  An unsuccessful challenge to this order in the Oklahoma Supreme Court by nine overpaid districts delayed the remaining twelve payments which are being made in each month of the current fiscal year, July, 2019 through June, 2020.

Here is a copy of the District Court’s order and citations to each of the legal proceedings.

What OSDE Should Do

The OSDE has incorrectly calculated FY 2020 state aid for each of the underpaid school districts because it has used the incorrect amount of FY 2019 motor vehicle collections in the calculation.  By way of illustration the current 2/10/2020 State Aid Allocation 2019-2020 for Midwest City-Del City school district uses $5,532,047 for Motor Vehicle in calculating the Total Chargeables, thereby resulting in Net Foundation Aid of $22,372,380.  While $5,532,047 is the amount paid to Mid-Del during FY 2019 by OTC, it is not the correct amount to be used as a chargeable because it includes the full amount of the February, 2019 payment of $626,585.09.  That payment was the sum of two calculated amounts:  Mid-Del’s ADA or “per capita” share of the $21,788,638.93 collected by the OTC for apportionment that month pursuant to the provisions of Title 47, being $467,640.70, and its one-thirteenth monthly correcting payment of $158,944.39 as ordered by the District Court to make up for underpayments in FYs 2017 and 2018.   The correct amount that should be used is the $467,640.70, which, thereby, would increase Mid-Del’s state aid by $158,944.39.  OSDE’s incorrect calculation is based on the apparent belief that Mid-Del should not keep the correcting payments ordered by the District Court and upon its mistaken construction of the state aid statute. 

Similar losses in calculated state aid, each in the amount of one-thirteenth of its Court ordered correcting payment, have been suffered by the other 214 underpaid districts receiving net foundation aid and possibly by some of the 56 underpaid school districts receiving no Net Foundation Aid this year.  If OSDE persists with its incorrect calculations and application of the state aid statute, underpaid districts will each lose twelve times as much in FY 2021.  Instead, OSDE should use in the calculation of state aid for all school districts in FY 2020 and FY 2021 the amounts calculated by the OTC pursuant to the current provision for the apportionment of motor vehicle collections in Title 47 in each of the preceding fiscal years before the adjustment is made to each payment as ordered by the District Court to compensate for the underpayments made in FY 2017 and FY 2018.

Here are FYs 2018, 2019 and 2020 Calculation sheets for Mid-Del and data for seven underpaid districts showing OSDE’s error.

OSDE Misunderstands the Purpose and Effect of the Chargeable Amounts

The seven original Plaintiff districts notified OSDE of the correct way to calculate their state aid for FY 2020 by advisory letter to its General Counsel on April 23, 2019 and by formal request to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction on April 29, 2019.  The General Counsel replied on behalf of OSDE to these underpaid districts on June 6, 2019, stating “…the OSDE respectfully declines your request.” 

Also disappointing to read in his letter was this phrase concerning the state aid statute, “… or how monies received (regardless of the mechanism) offset other sources of funding through the formula…”  to which the underpaid districts’ attorney  commented in his reply on June 12, 2019, “I infer, I hope incorrectly, that you are reflecting your agency’s belief that the 271 underpaid school districts were, subsequent to being shorted almost $23 million by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, ‘made whole’ through the state aid formula.  If that is your understanding of the facts, then it makes sense you would construe the statutory scheme to avoid providing a windfall to the 271 underpaid districts at the expense of the 146 that were overpaid.  Is my inference correct that Superintendent Hofmeister believes the losses in motor vehicle collections to my clients caused by the Tax Commission’s wrongful apportionments have been offset by subsequent increases in state aid?”  The underpaid districts have received no written response to that question.

The answer to that question is essential in determining how state aid should be calculated in FY2020 and FY2021.  If it is true, as was alleged by the OTC in opposing the District Court order and by the nine overpaid districts in their unsuccessful Petition to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and as OSDE may well believe, that the $22.8 million underpaid to 271 and overpaid to 146 districts was fully offset by subsequent year increases and decreases, respectively, in state aid, then it absolutely makes no sense that the underpaid districts should keep the Court ordered correcting payments now being made.  However, thinking this is so, that a subsequent year increase in state aid replaces the shortfall in prior year motor vehicle collections, requires believing that the same money (the subsequent year state aid increase) can be spent twice, first to make up for the prior year shortfall and also to offset the expected subsequent year’s reduced motor vehicle collections.  It is as simple as this, an underpayment cannot be corrected until an overpayment is made.  It cannot be shown in any year since August, 2015 that any of the underpaid districts have been overpaid, except for the court-ordered correcting payments made in February, 2019 and in the current year. Here is a more detailed example using Tulsa Public Schools’ data. Substitute the data for any underpaid school and the result is the same–no compensating overpayments have been received except those ordered by the court.      

The belief that underpaid districts were fully compensated as “…monies received (regardless of the mechanism) offset other sources of funding through the formula…” is false, and was unsupported by either court that considered the argument.  Therefore, it makes sense and is equitable that the all underpaid districts should keep the benefit of the Court ordered correcting payments.

There are three arguments that have been made by those who do not understand the purpose or effect of the five chargeable amounts that are based on preceding year amounts in the calculation of state aid.  Each is presented, analyzed and refuted in this Appendix with these Attachments. 

OSDE Misapplies the State Aid Statute

The amount of motor vehicle collections, which is “division (3)”, to be included in Foundation Program Income (or Chargeables as OSDE refers these revenue sources) is set forth at Title 70, Section 200.1(D)(1)(b) which states, “The items listed in divisions (3), (4), (5), and (6) of this subparagraph shall consist of the amounts actually collected from such sources during the preceding fiscal year calculated on a per capita basis on the unit provided for by law for the distribution of each such revenue.”  As shown above, OSDE in its calculation of FY 2020 state aid for Mid-Del used the total payments to the district for the preceding (2019) fiscal year of $5,532,047, which included the February, 2019 payment amount that is the sum of two calculated numbers. 

One is $467,640.70 which is the amount actually collected from motor vehicle revenues for Mid-Del that month so that it receives an amount based upon the proportion that its average daily attendance bears to the total average daily attendance of those districts entitled to receive the funds, being “a per capita basis”, as provided for the distribution of motor vehicle collections in Section 1104 of Title 47.  The other is the Court ordered correcting payment, one-thirteenth of Mid-Del’s calculated losses from FY 2017 and FY 2018, being $158,944.39.  The first is exactly what the statute describes; the second is not mentioned or described by the statute and should not be included.  The correct entry for the Motor Vehicle Collections amount in the calculation of state aid for Mid-Del in FY 2020 is $5,373,103.  As a further example the correct entries for each of the seven underpaid districts that were Plaintiffs in the successful litigation against the OTC are shown here as already referenced above.  The correct Motor Vehicle amounts to be used in calculating FY 2021 state aid for all underpaid districts are the total amounts paid to each by the OTC in FY 2020 less the Court ordered correcting payments added to each of the twelve monthly distributions. 

If OSDE persists in treating the Court ordered correcting payments in FY 2019 and FY 2020 as revenues “…calculated on a per capita basis on the unit provided for by law for the distribution of each such revenue…”, then the result is that by the end of FY 2021 the districts that were wrongly underpaid, then correctly overpaid to offset their losses, will finally be underpaid again.  That is a result that will be contrary to the legislative intent to provide the same revenues per weighted average daily membership through the state aid formula.  It will also create an absurd result, negating the correction ordered by the District Court and that has been reviewed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.  Expanded legal argument with case law references is provided in the underpaid districts’ letters also cited earlier.

Gary L. Watts

9187431410 or 9183130558

gary-watts@sbcglobal.net

I first met Jim in the fall of 1973 at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School, in Tulsa, where he would continue teaching history for several years.  His room was near mine on the first floor.  Wilson was part of the recent court-ordered desegregation plan with forced busing of minority students; its sports teams were the Wilson Rebels.  As we became better acquainted I could tell Jim truly had a gift for teaching.   One day I noticed Jim welcoming several African American adults into his classroom and later asked him what he was doing.  He shared that the guests were telling his students their stories about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot—a lesson in oral history.  As an exclusive product of the Tulsa Public Schools I said in response, “The Tulsa what?”  Like most white children of my generation raised in Tulsa I had never heard of the Race Riot and that day I became one of maybe thousands of Tulsans who learned about it from historian Jim Brown and his guests, many referred by College Hill members Dr. William and Lillian Perry. 

That same year Linda and I found our way to College Hill Presbyterian Church and were pleasantly surprised to find that Jim and Sara were active here.  As much as religion the church became a place where Jim and I and others learned about and discussed current events and politics.  During election seasons Jim organized many adult Sunday School classes around candidates for public office, always inviting both parties.  Congressman James R. Jones attended several and I believe was Jim’s guest during each of his campaigns from 1972 through 1984.  When I decided to run for the Tulsa School Board in 1976 Jim became my first and hardest working volunteer.  The general election was city-wide and Tulsa’s teachers were not happy with the incumbent I tried to unseat, so the campaign galvanized many who had never been involved before.  Though we lost that race many of us, especially the teachers involved like Jim, Elaine Dodd and Connie Koch, caught the political bug and wanted more.  We learned about the upcoming Tulsa County Democratic Party’s presidential nominating convention, and went to our precinct meetings all over the city getting elected as delegates, Jim and I for Fred Harris.  Our plan was to send teachers to the state convention to be part of nominating the Democrat who would run against Gerald Ford in the 1976 election.   The only problem was that Tommy D. Frazier, Mr. Democrat in Tulsa for decades, had a different plan.  As he sat in the back of our caucus room in his wheel chair he signaled his associates before each vote, and however Tommy D. signaled, two-thirds of the room would vote.  We elected no teachers as state delegates that day but Jim, Elaine, Connie and others learned how it worked.  Four years later, in strong partnership with Tommy D. Frasier and having proved themselves as loyal campaign workers in legislative, city and most recently my successful 1980 school board election, Jim Brown and Euna Smith became the first Tulsa teachers we know of to go to a national Democratic convention, held that year at Madison Square Garden in New York City where President Jimmy Carter was nominated to seek re-election.    Jim’s fellow delegates that year included Governor George Nigh, future state superintendent Sandy Garrett, and Tommy D’s younger brother Jim Frasier.  Over the next two decades I ran for election to local offices nine more times, winning all until defeated by Bill LaFortune in our contest to be Mayor of Tulsa.  Jim, and Sara until her death, were active in each one.  I never liked campaigning, but knowing Jim and I would be working together gave me that to look forward to.  Sometime along the way it became apparent to me that Jim and I were supporting the wrong candidate; Jim was the natural people person and that showed in the lopsided vote totals I received from the Florence Park precinct where he and Sara lived and that I couldn’t match with my own neighbors or anywhere else.  I suggested more than once he ought to run for office, but don’t think he ever seriously considered doing so.  Jim also believed in ethical campaigns focused on the issues and not attacking opponents, a standard I tried to live up to and when I fell short once, in our last campaign, he let me know his disappointment.  So President Jimmy Carter, Congressman James R. Jones, State Senators Penny Williams and Tom Adelson, State Representatives Jeannie McDaniel and Mary Easely, Mayor Susan Savage and many, many others were the beneficiaries, as was I, of Jim’s hands on patriotism. Jim and the other teachers in Tulsa during those years made a big difference and their advocacy, including a state-wide walk out, paid off for Oklahoma’s children with the passage of House Bill 1017 in 1990, authored by his state senator Penny Williams, the greatest education reform legislation in our state’s history and an inspiration to Oklahoma teachers in winning their historic pay increase last year.

Our friendship wasn’t all about politics and church.  Among several fun outings like the Woody Guthrie festival in Okema, Byron Berline in Guthrie and couples’ weekends in Pawhuska, our Wildflower weekend stands out.  Around 1990 the four of us got in my new used car, a Honda Accord, standard transmission, and headed to Quartz Mountain State Park and Lodge for a weekend of lectures and field walks to enjoy the amazing wildflowers in bloom that spring and each other’s company.  On our return to Tulsa that Sunday we drove through the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge including a drive to the top of Mt. Scott.  Somewhere west of Oklahoma City, around Newcastle on I-44, the transmission gave out.  Before cell phones when cars broke down you either waited for someone to stop or you went looking.  While Linda and Sara stayed with the car Jim and I headed out to the nearest farm house across a fenced pasture, maybe a quarter mile.  The owners welcomed us and let us use the phone.  While I called a wrecker service and my father to rescue us, Jim engaged in conversation with our good Samaritans and asked them about a framed display on the wall.  It was the Medal of Honor awarded to their son.  I remember little else than that since I was focused on the present and getting us home, but Jim, being Jim, enjoyed a real life experience of military history and honored that hero’s family by listening attentively to their story.  For me that day was inconvenient and stressful; for Jim it was another opportunity to learn, grow and lift others up.

Jim was my best friend and as I say that I know others here today are thinking the same thing, because Jim was a friend to so many–and you could have no better friend than Jim Brown.         

Jim passed away after a hard struggle with skin cancer on April 28, 2019, at home in the loving presence of his wife Ann Franklin and his children Tim and Celia Brown. Three other men shared at Jim’s memorial service in May that he was their best friend.

Not my words, rather an expression our Governor uses I guess to say he’s willing to try some radical stuff to make our state government more efficient.  This post is a follow up to the previous two so won’t make much sense unless you read them first.  I wondered what would happen if the Foundation and Incentive programs were combined, if that would free up much money.  It doesn’t seem to.  I converted Column F of the SDE’s spreadsheet (that I love) to the total $3,592.37 of the two formula factors thus combining the target Foundation and Incentive program revenues together.  Then, keeping the state dedicated revenues at zero, the only chargeable amounts will be the local property taxes.  I moved that total into Column G by combining the amount already there with 20 x the amounts in Column U, I think calculating for each district what the formula says the total of 35 mills will generate. 

For many districts the original amount in Column G equals 15 times the amount in Column U which makes sense at a 15 mill rate, but for most it does not, actually going as high as a bit over 19.  I think, but am not sure, that it has to do with how personal property is assessed in the 77 counties.  Possibly it has to do with assessment ratios, but I don’t think so.  Perhaps someone will enlighten me.

Back to the real story, the end result is a savings of $1.175 million which would shore up the state match for an additional two mills of local option as shown in my last two posts.   Before this exercise there were 24 districts still on the Foundation side of the formula and all those plus 15 more were receiving Incentive aid as well.  This last move, combining the two programs, while not freeing up much additional money reduces the total number of districts “off the formula” from that 39 to 34—the most notable still off being Cushing, Pryor and Stroud, each having their own happy stories of robust local property valuations.  And here’s a real “blow it up” strategy—just put the kids from Moffett on a bus each day to be educated in Pryor.

A Word About Equalizing

Say you have five kids, Ted, Alice, Ben, Sue and Martha from youngest to oldest.  You promise to take them to the amusement park at the end of the month if they do all you ask and save their chore money.  They do so and Ted has $10, Alice $20, Ben $30, Sue $40 and Martha $60.  Since admission and food is the same for all ages you do the math to see if you can supplement their earnings so each has $60 to match Martha by giving $50 to Ted, $40 to Alice, etc., but the total of $140 busts your $100 budget.  You give it more thought and decide Martha is an outlier so perhaps $40 each will do.  You do the math again and find the $60 cost leaves you with $40 to spare.  Being a generous parent you settle on assuring each child has at least $50 to spend which uses up your $100 budget and Martha can just enjoy her extra $10. 

With the SDE spreadsheet working different options for allowing local districts to increase their millage rates, yet maintaining some reasonable equity among all of Oklahoma’s children is easy to do.  What is not easy is to explain why we should turn the clock back on a decades long effort to assure children throughout our state have similar opportunities for a good education.

A Real Blow Up

None of this discussion about fairness is fully accurate unless and until the assessment practices by all 77 elected county assessors are uniform—or maybe ask the question why we even need locally elected county assessors for what is a function essential to assuring statewide delivery of public education.  Here’s an excerpt from my Post One Step Forward, Two Back:

The first by Mike Brake, Official Says Some Assessors Shortchange Schools, Counties, reports on a study done by the Oklahoma County Assessor’s office that looked at valuation practices in 12 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.    The study finds wide variations in assessment practices that are consistent with the 2013 Equalization Performance Audit commissioned by the State Board of Equalization which found 35 counties out of compliance.  Since the OCPA seems otherwise to be on a tear to greatly increase property tax revenues in Oklahoma as a way to fund public education, a state responsibility, it is a good thing that they take an interest in making sure assessment practices are consistent across all 77 counties.  Simply stated, if assessment practices are allowed to vary widely then the whim of individual assessors will thwart efforts to achieve fairness among taxpayers and adequate funding for schools statewide.  I’ve requested a copy of the Oklahoma County Assessor’s study and may have more to say later.

I never got the copy, don’t know why they wouldn’t respond, but I bet Governor Stitt could get a copy if he really wants to make a difference, i.e. “blow things up.”

As always lunch is on me for the first to ID the photo location.

In my post A Letter to Stitt, I tried to explain why any effort to allow more local millage in support of Oklahoma’s schools runs counter to Governor Stitt’s duty to provide a free public education for all of Oklahoma’s children UNLESS he is willing to pony up a new state dollar for every new local property tax dollar raised.  If all affected districts opted in, each additional mill would cost about $30 million or so in new state money.  In this post I show him where some of that state money can be found without raising taxes. 

The SDE spreadsheet that I am enamored with shows us that 77 districts (column AN) are off the Foundation Aid formula including all but one of the 39 that are also off the Incentive Aid formula (column AO), meaning a total of 78 are receiving more from the seven revenue sources included in the calculation of state aid than is needed to meet the legislative target of $3,592.37 (1,837.57 + 20 x 87.74) per weighted student.  Since all of those 78 districts are receiving revenue from some or all of the five state dedicated revenues, County 4-Mill through REA Tax below, then undoubtedly some of that revenue could be diverted to help match new local millage.

Here’s a table that shows the sources and totals of funds flowing through and around the state aid formula as shown in the SDE’s spreadsheet:

Local Property Taxes	1,260,524,569
County 4-Mill	111,258,350
School Land	100,031,979
Gross Production	103,560,732
Motor Vehicle	250,188,448
REA Tax	44,107,211
State Aid	2,368,584,982
Total Revenues	4,238,256,271

Local Property Taxes are the 35 mills I described in my previous post flowing to school districts as provided in the Oklahoma Constitution.  The next five are referred to as the State Dedicated Revenues. Two of the five, the County 4-mill levy and State Land, are also embedded in our state constitution at Article 10, Section 9 and Article 11, respectively, while the others, i.e. gross production, motor vehicle and rural electric apportionments to schools are set forth in statutes.  Interestingly Title 70, Section 18-109.7 provides that those three revenue sources shall be paid into the Common School Fund when voters amend Article 10, Section 12a of the state constitution, which apparently never happened.  If those three revenue sources were allocated as part of state aid instead of directly to school districts we can get an idea of what happens by simply replacing the data in columns K, L and M with zeros for all districts and letting the SDE spreadsheet (that I love) recalculate the amounts of state aid now required. 

What pops out, as expected, leaves the Transportation and Salary Incentive aid calculations (Columns R and W) unchanged.  That’s because those calculations are independent of the state dedicated revenues.  But the net Foundation Aid total changes to $1,347,958,545 (Column O) from the original $1,004,095,242—an increase of $343,863,303.  Not to worry though because $397,856,391 has been added to funding for net state aid from the three dedicated sources leaving a dividend of $54 million that is available to match the increase in local millage Stitt wants to allow and still keep school districts with reasonably equalized operational funding.  The $54 million comes from the 77 school districts that were off the Foundation Aid formula before we made the change; that count is now 35 meaning 42 have been brought back into the Foundation side of the equalization formula.

Since additional local millage will require amending our state constitution any way, we can consider what happens if the other two, County 4-Mill and School Land (Columns I and J), are also be placed in the Common School Fund (I think it exists, if not the annual state aid appropriation) and apportioned through the formula.  The resulting amount needed for net Foundation Aid (Column O) increases by $204,990,568 to $1,552,949,113, but we have $211,290,329 to offset that, leaving Stitt with $6.3 million more to match additional local millage (maybe not worth the constitutional change).  Our beginning chart would now look like this:

Local Property Taxes	1,260,524,569
County 4-Mill	0
School Land	0
Gross Production	0
Motor Vehicle	0
REA Tax	0
State Aid	2,917,438,853
Total Revenues	4,177,963,422

Which is right at $60 million less than the Total Revenues above—about enough to match two new local mills.  Also another 11 school districts are brought back on the Foundation Aid part of the formula. Next time I’ll help our Governor “blow it up”.

As always lunch is on me for the first to ID the photo location.

Governor Stitt was in Tulsa the last week of August for a State of the State address to the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce.  His remarks, as reported by the Tulsa World, included that “his administration is looking into letting communities vote for higher property taxes to better fund schools without having the increase offset by the state’s funding formula.”  That motivated me to send this letter to the World, published yesterday:

Henry Bellmon, arguably Oklahoma’s greatest education governor, as part of his legacy left us a state aid formula that gives every child in this state access to an education from a local school district that is funded at about the same operational level throughout the state.  If Governor Stitt moves forward with allowing school districts to increase local property tax millage as a way to provide new funding for our schools he will need to decide early on if he values all of Oklahoma’s children, or just those who reside in in districts with greater property wealth.  Excluding the 2% of students whose school districts are “off the formula” because of local wealth and the 5% attending charter schools that do not receive property taxes, school districts serving the remaining 93% raise $630 million through a 20 mill local levy which must be leveraged in the foundation program part of the formula with $1.24 billion in state revenues to achieve the target equalization.  I applaud Governor Stitt for wanting to give local districts more resources, but unless he is willing to add about two state dollars for every local dollar raised he will be telling us that he values a Bixby student twice as much as a Sand Springs student, a student at Wynnewood in Garvin County fifteen times as much as a Bethany student in Oklahoma County, and a student at Peckham in Kay County 150 times as much as a Moffet student in Sequoyah County.  That’s no legacy.

The data source of my analysis is the most recent, dated 8/11/2019, from the “Foundation & Salary Calculation Worksheets” on the State Department of Education’s site that, to my shame, I don’t recall finding before and that will likely save me a lot of time in the future when succumbing to My Obsession.   The worksheets for each fiscal year, updated as changes are made to state aid, contain all the information from the individual districts’ calculation worksheets.  This most current one will be updated at least one more time to capture the new total valuations for levy of property taxes in 2020, so its valuations are for the previous year.  Also districts will submit first quarter student membership data that can increase the Weighted Average Daily Membership counts that are used for each district and the statewide total.

I love spreadsheets.  They are such a powerful and accessible tool for analysis and an ongoing wonder for those of us who studied mathematics through college using hand calculations and tables (though we could write our own computer programs to analyze data with a 24 hour turn around).  So I went to work on the spreadsheet, first creating a new column that is the ratio of column U (Adj. Val. / 1000) to column S (Salary Incent WADM x factor $87.74).  School districts have authority under Article 10, Section 9, to levy 35 mills, which used to be differentiated between 15 mills that was fairly automatic and up to an additional 20 mills by annual approval of voters.  When the Salary Incentive part of the formula was developed it was intended to encourage districts to levy the full 20 additional mills by increasing state aid for each mill levied.  I think now all districts levy the full 20 because that’s how Column W is set up.  Column S (times 20) is the amount of funding the legislature wants districts to have through this part of the formula being the total each generates from the 20 mill levy with the difference (Column W) being made up in state aid.  Column U is the amount each district can raise with one mill (scaled to 1/20^th like Column S). 

The result in this new calculation column shows what part of the Salary Incentive target revenue each district can raise from its 20 mill levy.  At the bottom is poor Moffett Public Schools in Sequoyah County where its 20 mills will generate only 2.556% of the revenue needed.  Actually at the bottom are all of the state’s public charter schools, serving about 5% of weighted students, at 0.0% because they have no authority to levy property taxes.  At the top is the Peckham Public School in Kay County where its 20 mills generate 377% of the revenue needed.  At 100% or more a district is “off the formula” and our list shows 29 of those that generate all they need and then some for this part of the formula.  Those are the 2% I refer to in my letter—based on weighted student counts which are greater than actual numbers, but are in similar proportions among most districts.

Here is how I came up with my $2 of state money for every new $1 from additional millage.  If we want perfect equalization we would start with Peckham, but I opted for the Legislature’s standard, meaning the districts that currently receive some Salary Incentive aid and are serving 93% of the students.  At the top of that list is the Wynnewood district in Garvin County which generates 96.1% of its Salary Incentive target.  Totaling its small amount of aid along with the 470 school districts in between down to Moffett, it takes the $1.24 billion in state aid, together with the $630 million generated by the same districts’ 20 mill levies to keep the formula’s equalization in place.  Without reasonable equalization then this offer of allowing local districts to enhance their programs with greater property taxes is a great opportunity for communities high on the ratio scale to step up, but a mostly hollow option for those down the ratio scale.  It’s simple math to show that without equalization by the state the good folks in Moffett will need a 37 mills increase in their tax rate to match the per student amount generated in Peckham by only a one mill increase.  I hope that’s a hard sell to anyone who cares, as a governor should, about all the children in our state.

Perhaps there are other options not so clearly wrong.  What if we only provided equalizing state aid for additional millage up to a ratio of 70% of the Salary Incentive target.  Then the cut-off is at Western Heights in Oklahoma County still going down the scale to Moffett and capturing 91.5% of weighted students—not too shabby.  An additional mill for each of those 448 districts adds about $30 million and can be “equalized” within that group for about $33 million in state aid, being pretty close to a dollar for dollar return on the state’s new investment.  Moving down the scale further to 60% makes Edmond the starting point and the math gets interesting because while 89.3% of weighted students are covered by the equalization it still requires more than a dollar of state aid, even more than at 70% (a 1.15 ratio instead of 1.10), for each local dollar of property tax raised.  Pushing down further begins to greatly increase the number a students served by “have not” districts.  Regardless of where you land it’s going to take at least a dollar of state aid incentive for each additional dollar likely to be raised with the optional milllage to maintain a semblance of fairness.

To Be Continued.

As always lunch is on me for the first to ID the location of the photo above.