This past weekend, I visited the annual Italian festival in McAlester. This event has been successful for many years. They have many vendors, but I always find myself migrating to the food tent. The Italian tradition is still strong in Latimer and Pittsburg counties.
With session winding down, most of our focus is on budget matters. We have more than $10.4 billion available, and of that, we plan to appropriate about $9.8 billion to state agencies to continue core government services and programs. Our economy seems to be doing extremely well with revenues of over $1 billion in April alone, but we have to take into account that some of that is the increased price of oil and gas as well as inflation. Plus, we still have federal relief dollars in the economy. With that in mind, we want to be conservative in our spending. Still, this will be a larger budget than last year, so core areas will be secured, and we also plan to put the maximum into our Rainy Day fund for the years when money is tight.
Next week will be our last week in session. Hopefully, all matters will be wrapped up, and we won’t have to meet daily. But we will have a buffer to take care of any lingering procedural matters that might arise.
As always, thank You for allowing me to serve you. It is a true pleasure. If there is ever anything I can do for you, I can be reached at (405) 557-7381 or by email at jim.grego@okhouse.gov.
Jim Grego serves District 17 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. His district includes Latimer County and parts of LeFlore and Pittsburg counties.
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