This post, my 100th since beginning this blog in June, 2016, is a message for governor-elect Kevin Stitt. According to a post-election Tulsa World article Stitt recognizes that having good data is important, saying “But we have to use data to make decisions. We are not going to keep doing the same things we’ve been doing.” At least I assume he wants good data, not just numbers contrived to support preconceived decisions, because I suspect being successful in the mortgage business required information upon which he could rely.
If he does want accurate information and data he will do well to stay clear of the fellows at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. More than sixty of my posts have been based on silly and incorrect information and/or analysis provided by the OCPA or a companion stink tank. What surprised me at first is just how easy it has been to demonstrate outright factual distortions and silly deceptions all clothed in their aura of being a self-proclaimed “trusted source for fact-based public policy analysis”. I wish that it was true: Governor Stitt will need the best information but, if past is prologue, he won’t get it from them.
In a loose chronological order here are the dirty dozen data drivels from the OCPA, twelve reasons why Governor Stitt should not rely on them as “a trusted source for fact-based public policy analysis”:
1. The OCPA constantly advocates for public funding of private schools, through vouchers and tax credits, which when implemented will have a fiscal impact on the state budget in some direct relation to the number of students in private or home schooling. OCPA fellow Brandon Dutcher, in critiquing some argument by the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, simply used the same number, 100,000, it used without fact-checking or researching on his own. I easily showed why the count of Oklahoma students not in public schools is likely less than half that number. This Is Too Much Fun.
2. My earliest exposure to the inability of Steve Anderson to produce anything resembling fact-based public policy analysis was his question “Why are school districts sitting on so much cash?”. He simply regurgitated the cash balance information readily available on the State Department of Education’s website then hoped to shock his readers with numbers so large, $1.9 billion, that they would conclude school districts obviously had plenty of money for teacher raises or whatever else might be needed. Instead, it was obvious that he did not take the time to pose his question to anyone responsible for managing school district finances, i.e. he did no research, no real analysis, no work. When a “researcher” asks a question then makes no attempt to answer it, he’s not a researcher, he’s an empty mouthpiece. Fortunately, since I dismissed his feeble attempt to intimidate me in You’re Not in Kansas Anymore, I’ve seen no more of his by-line. Where to Begin, Paradox of Thrift, Shooting Fish in a Tank, Miserables Love Company.
3. I show how the OCPA distorts facts and statistics with their link “The “Oklahoma Pension Bomb” which exaggerates pension costs for taxpayers by 40%. The fellows at the OCPA (and Mike Rogers, newly appointed Secretary of State by Governor-elect Stitt) show repeatedly that they do not understand how to read Oklahoma pension system actuarial reports. That is a shameful circumstance for a self-proclaimed “trusted source for fact-based public policy analysis”. Lies, damn lies, and Statistics, Compound Fractured Research, Don’t Forget Teacher Retirement, Not the full Picture.
4. Without a doubt my favorite demonstration of the OCPA’s shameless incompetence was the bold, unsupported statement by Dave Bond on statewide television (KOTV’s Educate Oklahoma in 2016) that a new law affecting school employee health insurance would free up $100 million for teacher pay raises. I show why that claim, like other silly claims he made, was empty puffery (or simple bullshit) pushing the narrative that there was plenty of money available for teacher pay raises. Bond, Something Special and more Bond.
5. The clear message from the pages of the OCPA in the two years before the legislature courageously ignored their “fact-based public policy analysis” was that there was plenty of money available for teacher pay raises, including one-time funds for recurring expenses advocated by Anderson, made-up money advocated by Bond, and the more realistic “surge” data provided by Benjamin Scafidi. His simple research (it’s notable that he is with a sister stink tank in another state, not the OCPA whose research rarely rises even to the level of simple) shows that school districts in Oklahoma and across the nation have hired non-teacher staff at a rate faster than they have hired classroom teachers. He then does the math to show how much of a raise could be given if school districts simply laid off all those “excess” non-teachers. He also deceptively refers to the non-teachers as “administrators and others”, falsely implying administrators made up the greatest share of the non-teacher hiring surge, but he does no further research. How would a governor know whether laying off non-teachers is a viable way to fund a pay raise without knowing the impact on special education requirements or that funding saved by reducing child nutrition staffing won’t be available for teacher pay? That would be the next obvious step in “fact-based public policy analysis”. Surge 1, surge 2, surge 3 and step thinker
6. It’s no wonder that the OCPA staff are not held to a real standard of providing “fact-based public policy research” when Jonathan Small, the fellow at the top, produces drivel himself. His comment about a serious study by the Small Business Administration which attempts to calculate the costs of complying with regulations in our economy focuses only on the estimated $2 trillion rough estimate of annual costs, clearly intending for the reader to conclude that all regulations are unnecessary and costly burdens. He fails to share that the study’s author acknowledges: “This report does not address the benefits of regulation, an important challenge that would be a logical next step toward achieving a rational regulatory system.” So Small would advise: “Governor Stitt, there’s no reason to regulate injection wells and impose costs on oil and gas producers.” But he should add, “UNLESS avoiding earthquake damage to Oklahomans’ property is a sufficient benefit to justify imposing the costs.” But don’t look to Jonathan Small for help with that analysis. Onward and 64 million
7. Upon learning of the 1889 Institute and its PhD economist Byron Schlomach I briefly had hopes he might influence the OCPA to step up its game and do real fact-based public policy analysis. I was quickly disappointed upon seeing that Schlomach produced data that blatantly exaggerated school district expenditures by double-counting their capital expenses. It is an error no astute freshman economics major would make, much less a PhD economist. He double counted again in estimating the cost of teacher compensation and benefits in Oklahoma by failing to understand how teacher health insurance is coded and budgeted. Simply stated he couldn’t believe the low compensation reported for Oklahoma teachers so he guessed at a way to make them higher. Though I only have an A.B. in economics, I can confidently declare Schlomach is an embarrassment to the economics profession. Later, Double, A Rise and Rearranging
8. Most of my posts that should be of interest to an incoming state administration have been about education finance and state retirement system funding, both areas where I’ve developed some credible ability for “fact-based public policy analysis”, unlike the fellows at the OCPA. Another area of interest, but where my ability is not so credible, is the area of health care/insurance policy, which is, like education, a major category of state expenditures. A post on the OCPA site by Mark Perry inspired me to write several posts about both our state and national health care policy, the obvious issue for governor-elect Stitt being whether he will continue to refuse the hundreds of millions available, from federal taxes being paid by this and future generations of Oklahomans, for improving the health and financial well-being of our state and its people—i.e. will he act to implement Medicaid expansion. Hopefully, in weighing what will possibly be his most consequential decision as governor, he will not take advice from Mark Perry or any of the other “researchers” at the OCPA who have such infantile understanding of “markets” and “free enterprise” that they would equate the market for optional face-lifts and tummy-tucks with the real worlds of cancer, heart disease and opioid addiction that are lowering the life expectancies of Oklahomans. Two Wrongs, Spoonful, Dennis, Geezer, Looking for Mr. James, Dr. No.
9. The only OCPA fellow I’ve actually met is Trent England. We had lunch together and an engaging conversation; he is likely a good father, a welcome neighbor, and faithful friend to many; but he fails to provide reliable “fact-based policy analysis”. In two successive posts I show how he makes a fairly obvious two billion dollar error in his “analysis” of state education expenditures, and how he uses, knowingly or unknowingly, shabby and deceptive calculations to distort the effort made (in fact none) by our state to help the “most vulnerable” (my version, not Tom Coburn’s silliness) with their health care expenses. Let me say that again, two billion dollars! So my advice to our governor-elect, Mr. England is a delightful lunch companion, but do not look to him for “data to make decisions”, unless your expectation includes a two billion margin of error. Unbelievable, There You Go Again.
10. Another example, like surge Scafidi, that shows the OCPA has no monopoly on limited thinkers is one of their contributors Greg Forster of the Friedman Institute. He took State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister to task for being concerned about the fiscal impact of a proposed education choice program. He argues that the proposed program would simply shift existing fiscal resources from the public school system to private schools so obviously there is no impact, EXCEPT that a (possibly) real researcher from his own stink tank has clearly shown that such programs do have a fiscal impact. In a Flash, Where to Begin, Tribute
11. New OCPA fellow Curtis Shelton showed some early promise because when I took him and Dave Bond to task for double counting capital spending and debt payments and for including carry-over balances in their “analysis” showing Oklahoma schools have plenty of funding, he subsequently avoided the double counting (education of little thinker). Still Shelton, like the others (silo), is too lazy to discern that the sources and uses of public school and other state government funding are the result of purposeful policy choices that must be part of “fact-based public policy analysis” if they are to be of any use to our governor-elect. Translated, getting rid of school breakfasts for needy children won’t free up funding for teacher pay raises. Piling On
12. There are so many more, from Joel Griffith whose distortions of data led me to Oklahoma’s deep state, to former Governor Frank Keating who makes up numbers for education spending, to former Senator Tom Coburn whose “most vulnerable” are the wealthiest Oklahomans, and I could go on—as I have—but let me end with reference to my post on Kevin Stitt himself, Stitt Strikes Out. I gave him a third strike for his advocacy during the campaign “to give schools the flexibility to use part of their current property tax revenue on teacher pay instead of being restricted to buildings and infrastructure.” His, and others’, fascination with this as a solution to something shows a woeful lack of understanding about how disparate property tax wealth is among Oklahoma school districts and how our state aid funding formula goes a long way to correct that disparity. Either that or he doesn’t care about children living in property tax poor districts—which I don’t believe is true. The most important data he needs to make decisions affecting the most important function of state government, is how property tax wealth affects local school districts’ ability to fund education and how the state aid formula seeks to correct those disparities in an effort to assure that all of Oklahoma’s children have access to quality education.
The Thinker has been fairly dormant lately, consumed with duties as “chief cook and bottle washer” for two delightful ladies and one old geezer, but committed to finishing this 100th post before year’s end which I am doing as my friend for life and I celebrate the 50th anniversary of our honeymoon in December, 1968 at Tenkiller Lake State Park. Here’s a sunset we enjoyed there.
As always lunch is on me for the first to ID the photo location.