Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome me.
It's time now for our community connection right here on KAY one, the
one you trust, and we have state Representative John B. Kane, who
also has the Kinge's column on Bartlesville Radio dot com. He's also your representative.
And how you doing there, John B. Hey, I'm doing really
well. As you know. We wrapped up our legislative session yesterday evening rather
late. I think I got home ten fifteen or so last night. But
it's great to be home. Man. I just love getting back to Bartlesville
and getting back into District eleven. And I think we had a good session.
It was for me since it was my second year in. It was
a better session because I was more. I was just prepared for what was
coming. You know, a year of experience, it means a lot,
and I was happy to have it, and I think I'll be better even
going back here next year. So just excited it's over, though, because
if you don't want us down there any longer than we have to be,
we'll just cause we'll just cause a problem. Now, John, you mentioned
in your column and you also mentioned here a couple of times on our Capital
Call program that the disappointed a bit that we didn't get that any kind of
tax cut, going yeah, detail that. Yeah, I'm disappointed. We
could have done it. I mean, let's say I'm moderately disappointed because it's
still a lot done. But we did get a lot done and it's still
on the table, and you know, we did we did get the grocery
sales tax, the state portion of the sales tax removed, and that's that's
this is the first budget year that that's going to impact it. So I
think, you know, I can understand someone saying, well, let's just
let's watch what happens here, let's make sure we're okay. I, on
the other hand, do feel like there's no doubt we're okay. I've seen
what the numbers look like. We're still exceeding revenue projections. So I think
we could have done it. But the good news is we still kept a
very conservative budget like I think that most Oklahomas would want, and we've had
the four point eight billion dollars in savings right now that still gives us.
That leaves all these things on the table. It could be a tax cut,
we could continue to you know, some of the deferred maintenance on our
state facilities over two really important, and it gives us the ability to address
these you know, my gosh, you know, ten years ago these couldn't
even be discussed because we were just trying to get by and fund whatever core
services we could. But we do have an obligation to take care of our
assets once we build them and take you know, like any business, you
don't let them fall down and go to ruin. So but the fact that
we've conservatively budgeted, it's left all these discussions on the table. We can
prioritize it. We could spend money and take care of things that need to
be taken care of. Well, you mentioned a problem that the state never
really had a few years ago, but it was a good problem to have.
What do we do with the savings? Yes, how do we account
for it? How do we yeah, how do we put this on the
books? We're saving money? Because I would first talk to the fiscal staff
now there and I said, okay, where where's the savings? I can't
see here's well, and why can't we get a number that's the same that
everybody understands because it was in oighteen different accounts, and it was some of
it was actually labeled as savings. Some of it was just in what would
you call them, revolving funds. So now we've now that we have this
money, we're getting better at accounting for it, handling it, and knowing
what we have. And so I feel pretty confident will be at a minimum
at the end of this year, which is the end of June, end
of this fiscal year, will be at least at four point eight five billion,
and it could it could get up closer closer to that five billion,
depending on what happens. You know, a lot of states don't have this.
I'm going to tell you Oklahoma's very blessed. Iowa has this. Oklahoma
has this, Illinois, New York, California, they New Jersey, they
don't have U. They're running on hopeing a prayer and maybe tomorrow will be
a better day. It's become pretty clear from a fiscal standpoint at least,
and I will argue many other standpoints, but the conservatively run, Republican run
states are outperforming the others by quite a margin, and I think it's only
escalating. You're seeing more and more outward migration from these liberal states into more
conservative states like Oklahoma. You know, we're a top ten state as far
as in migration net My gosh, you know, who would have thought that
was going to happen in nineteen eighty five, you know, but here we
are, and it's because we've taken care of our business. We haven't seen
this kind of in migration since statehood begin That's right, that's right, This
is pretty good, John, you're a big proponent of education. We saw
some education bills come by anything take you pique your interest there as far as
it's very important ones. You know, we we continue to fund education extremely
well. We we continue to address the teacher shortage with signing bonuses. That
was an effective program of bringing teachers in. And then it's also in the
we're paying student teachers now for the first time to try and say, hey,
we're going to help you get through, finish your finish your degree.
If you're going to come help us out, we're going to pay you something.
And I think all these things are part of the answer. Note there's
no silver bullet, but I think we continue to put our money where our
mouth is. We don't just say education is truly kind of the top item
in the state. If you look at what's going to propel us in the
future. We have to have an educated workforce and people and that create jobs
that stay here. We want we want our young people to stay here.
And we made a lot of good maybe not well it's education, but it's
take career tech. We made a nice investment. We made a nice investment
in career tech for workforce development. But that's something that we went down there
over the last year or two years that's been talked about a lot. Well
we've addressed that in any ways. So you know, that's not something you
get an immediate payback on, but you just have to keep doing your best
and on faith that that's the right thing to do well for a long time
here in Oklahoma, if you didn't have a cattle to ranch or oil to
work for or develop, you know, you really didn't have a reason to
stay here. You could do anything other than that. In any state in
America, you know, you could do this, do that, or whatever,
be a doctor or a lawyer, maybe go to some other state.
But now with all these different things that are here, it makes people want
to stay here, raise their families here, knowing darn well that the kids
have a better chance at finding jobs Aaron and I I mean, my goodness
sakes, that field is wide open for that. A variety of different professions,
a lot of different professions, and they're all very well paying jobs.
And as they're growing, industry shows no sign of slowing up. Of course,
we got our own Kevin Potters. There's only Anononyx commission. He was
down in Oklahoma City last week helping, helping the state, and well,
we're lucky to have people like that in all our commissions, but Kevin,
that being down there helping on that is is big. But yeah, those
things are really a I don't know when I've never been more optimistic for our
state right now. You know, you see Tulsa and Oklahoma City just continuing
to climb the rankings of you know, all the good metrics, you know,
whether it's cost of living of course, it's jobs, it's new business
startups. They it's really turned. Both of those cities are doing so well,
and it's it's reaching out into some of the rural areas too. So
it's a good time to be in Oklahoma. I promise you that, and
you know I will I want to say something, you know, do this.
You know I'm gonna be back here in just a little bit and doing
capitol calling and with my good friend jud And. But I so I'm gonna
pivot a little bit to what's going on in Bartlesville, because you know,
again it did we kind of led right into it. I mean, I
think there's reasons for optimism here, just like there is all over the state.
I come back and I'm never I'm always amazed at how many great things
are going on here. You know, we got SunFest getting ready to kick
off, and we got Okam getting ready to kick off. You know,
Kitty Park's open. What an investment. We can thank Ken Johnson for coming
into Bartlesill, Oklahoma, where he was born and raised and still having that
connection that he wanted to do something. And if you have not been down
to see what he's had done at the Kitty Park, please go down.
Oh my goodness, we owe him a great debt of gratitude and seeing those
kinds of things happen. I see, we got a new new fire chief.
But he's a guy that's from Bartlesville. A matter of fact, he
stayed in my district. He was he left Bartlesville to become the chief in
Collinsville and then be Coore talking about HC. Call And now he's going to
take that take over here after Chief Toppings retired after thirty five years. You
know he's gotten a he deserves, deserves a good retirement. Well you ran
into enough burning buildings. He can retire. Yeah, and you know,
a shameless promotion here, But I will say, you know, I'll start
this by thanking my wife because she she manages my Facebook page. Oh,
she helps me so much. I don't know how a person does this job
without a spouse or somebody that's still committed to it. Like she loves this.
She loves Bartlesville in district at eleven just like I love it. So
she's she's an important part of this work for me. And she keeps this
up up for me. But now where was I going on that? Oh
but you could go to my Facebook page and she all this information is there,
the good news, what's going on, what's happen in Bartlesville, whether
it's the farmer's market. You know, you just got me your ambling here.
I was out in the district a couple of weeks ago, and I
was speaking to a young man at the very Cafe and he told me about
Throw Town Ramona. Do you know what throw Town Ramona is. It's a
track and field for the throwing sports, you know, the discus, the
shot put, the hammer. And this man started it. He was He's
done very well for himself. He's got a coach that came in. They
set a world record discus throw a man from Lithuania. We're drawing people from
all over the world to Ramona, Oklahoma to throw because they've set it up,
because they're knowledgeable on how to say and they set it up where the
wind is right and everything. And they've got four different pits to throw out
of. And I'm telling you what, we ought to embrace this because I
don't know what this could become. But they have people. When I I
just stopped in unannounced, they had something going on and there were kids there
from Georgia, there were kids there for Florida. There were kids there all
in participating in a tournament and they were they were national champion type track and
field athletes. And it's in a pasture south of Ramona, Oklahoma, on
the Old Highway, and it's incredible. It's just if you look around a
little bit, you can find some amazing things. A nettle kidding espn ought
to be I think I think you ought to take it. You ought to
go all check it out. I will. And they I think they deserve
to be talked about a little bit. I just first first heard about them
when I saw a world record was set in Ramona, Oklahoma, and I
thought it was a typo. And sure enough, and they're doing incredible things
for track athletes in that down in that Ramona. Wow, I'll be yeah,
it's awesome. Another gym in the area, another gym in the area.
It's and of course we got voting coming up. We got camp AIM's
going on. Sure it's coming up on the eighteenth. We've got some forums
and things that will be going on too. Will be talking to a lot
of folks about that on the radio here pretty soon. You don't have an
opponent this year. No are you having a primary opponent, nor do you
have opposing party opponent. Yeah, I feel I feel very blessed with that.
You know, if there's at this point doing this job. And my
great friend Earl Sears told me when we were talking about me potentially running for
this office, you know, we really have two things. You have to
do and constitutionally we have to pass a balanced budget every year. Okay,
check. But the second thing is to advocate for our district. And so
this gives me time. Sometimes the line between campaigning and doing the job is
kind of blurry because it's my job to be out to talk to people,
listen to people. I want I want calls, I want emails, I
want texts. I want to understand what District eleven, what's going on here
and what we need. How can I what can I do in Oklahoma City
that will help us here? And that's so that's the other important part of
my job, and that this interim period gives me that great opportunity to really
be out and round more and please, I mean, I'm going to give
them my cell phone number one more time they do call it at nine one
eight four four zero seven two nine five, and I will answer that phone.
And if there's something like I'm working on a constituent request. There's some
question as to taking money out of your HSA account, your health savings account
after you reach the age of sixty five. There seems to be some then
the law doesn't seem to be definitely clear. If we follow the irs law
of saying that that there's no penalty for taking it out of your HSA at
that age or is there a penalty. We're trying to get that figured out.
But if it isn't clear, I'm going to try to run some legislation
just to clear that up, because it shouldn't be a penalty to take that
out your money at that age. Yeah, you put it in, you
get it out. So but I know that because a constituent called me and
a constituent had concerns, and I wouldn't have thought to be looking into that.
And that's what I love. I love to hear things from people.
And I'll be out and around and check that Facebook page out as John John
Kane for okay, and Barbara keeps that thing up so well. She does
an amazing job. Wow, that's the great way for to stay in touch
with me. John, Thanks for being with us. We'll see you here
in about an hour. I'll be back. It would be more like forty
five minutes, but we'll have you on Capitol. Thank you for being with
us today. Thanks a lot, Tom folks, you've been listing and watching
our community connection. When it comes to your children, it choosing the right
daycare is important. You want peace of mind knowing you're putting your child in
the care of the best facility. Wesley and Kitty