State Supt Walters Calls Out Governor & Legislature For Not Cutting Spending or Ending State Income Tax
Walters and Stitt Divide on Immigration, Green Energy and Now Govt Spending
On Friday, outside of the Oklahoma State Senate chamber, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R) called out a Republican dominated legislature for failing to reduce spending within the state budget or eliminate state income taxes for Oklahomans as publicized.
Earlier this week, a budget deal between legislative leadership and the governor was released and included only a .25% income tax decrease (4.75% to 4.5%) as a first step in what was described as a potential path to eliminating state income tax in the future. The reduction was only half of what Stitt was promoting earlier this year.
The budget also gave Walters’ education department budget a $25 million dollar increase despite his request for an 8% reduction in funding for FY26.
“People want to know, when is Oklahoma going to step up and defend working class citizens,” stated Walters. “Then this week, I see a budget where we have the smallest income tax cut possible. We’ve got Texas that has no income tax, we’ve got Florida that has no income tax. We’re expecting the tax payers of Oklahoma to continue paying income taxes while they’re trying to made ends meet in this economy. I think that’s ridiculous. I think it is absurd. I think there is plenty of time to get back to work and provide real tax relief to families. I believe that it’s absolutely essential for the taxpayers of Oklahoma to have no income tax this year. They have demanded that time and time again.”
Walters did not mince words stating, “A deal has been cut, a deal that I don’t feel like taxpayers were invited to the table. A budget has been presented. We’re supposed to like it and move on…We’re going to go another year and not deliver on that promise…I’m not going to let a budget slide through without someone in this building going out and defending the tax payers of Oklahoma…We have to have comprehensive tax reform and we have to have it now.”
On the process of reducing tax burdens, Walters put the burden back on government. “You start with taxpayers. We’re not going to collect this tax. When you start there, then you make the government adjust to that,” declared Walters. “You know what’s going to happen? We’re going to have economic prosperity because people will spend more.”
Walters also spoke in favor of eliminating property tax as an additional economic stimulant. “Why would we continue to tax somebody’s property they’ve already paid for, year after year after year. Do they really even own it?” questioned Walters. “You’ll actually have people that want to move here and work here because they know that when I buy that property, it’s mine.”
Walters said lobbyists and special interests are driving the state budgeting process with demands of “more money, more money” and labeled ongoing promises of tax reform “political talking points”.
Walters talked about how his agency, the Oklahoma State Department of Education (SDE) was criticized for cutting 150 jobs. “What do we want to do with that money? We want to support our kids, our schools and our parents. We’re not here to provide paychecks for government employees,” said Walters. “We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”
Walters shared that due to administrative cuts at the SDE, he requested less within the current budget, yet the legislature gave the agency an overall increase. “Where’s the cuts to the budget?” asked Walters.
When asked how education could be funded without state income and property taxes, Walters answered, “That’s what we did in our agency. We came and said we’re going to cut a bunch of these jobs. Federal government, we want you to cut a bunch of your jobs. Let’s give this money directly to the schools. Let’s eliminate administrative positions. Let’s eliminate bureaucratic positions.”
When asked how he could’ve reduced spending at the SDE while providing the controversial employee bonuses recently made public, Walters said that eliminating unneeded staff allowed the more productive, remaining employees to be rewarded.
“We dramatically slashed the budget. We fired individuals. I said it from the beginning, if you work for my agency, you’re going to be paid on merit,” shared Walters. “We’ve been able to find some real rockstars. You know, its funny, when you pay on merit, the cream rises to the top.”
Walters says he encourages all school districts to participate in the Oklahoma Teacher Empowerment Program (OTEP), a merit pay structure for high performing teachers. “That’s the free market 101…but it does requires a shift in the way you govern…We want more bang for our buck which is merit pay.”
Bibles in Classrooms, Illegal Immigration Cost to Schools and Stitt’s Green Energy Push Addressed
On Bibles as an available historical reference within the state’s history and social studies classrooms, Walters said that will happen with or without state budget funding.
“We’ve already had quite a few donated,” said Walters. “It’s Oklahoma parents, it’s Oklahoma teachers that say look we want this. We’ve continued to see the generosity of individuals who say hey, if they’re not going to fund it, we’ll pony up.”
Walters also defended his commitment to transparency with taxpayers about the cost of illegal immigration within public education. “Let’s walk through a simple math equation. So you have $10,000 a kid, you have 20 kids in a classroom. That’s $200,000,” explained Walters. “Ask that teacher if she feels like there’s $200,000 of her salary sitting there.”
After a January vote of the State Board of Education to collect immigration information of students, Governor Stitt removed three (3) of his previous appointees from the board.
Stitt’s replacement appointee Chris VanDenhende, in his first action on the board, moved to shut down all talk of immigration. A battle for control of the board’s agenda continues as Republican legislative leaders have pushed two (2) recent ambush bills in an attempt to wrestle power from the only elected member of the State Board of Education.
VanDenhende, CFO of Mint Turbines and Southwest Fuel Systems of Stroud, has potential ties to Stitt’s green energy agenda. At Friday’s press conference, Walters addressed Stitt’s promotion of green energy in Oklahoma calling it a “green energy debacle”.
“This green energy subsidy nonsense has to stop,” said Walters. “We’re an oil and gas state. Oil and gas is booming. They’re saying let us drill and it will just keep coming in, we’ve got jobs, bring them to our state, we’ll come here. And we’re going, hey green energy company, which by the way are almost all owned by leftists, we’re going to give you subsidies cause we want to bring you here. Boy, get out around the state and see how people feel about doing more subsidizing of wind mills.”
Walters Two Years at SDE, Breaking Teachers Union Grip and Importance of New Training Options for Local School Boards
Walters reflected on his two (2) years as state superintendent. “The reason I was elected is because our education was so fundamentally broken. They weren’t protecting parents rights. The teachers unions ran that agency (SDE). The teachers unions ran our schools. We’ve run them out of town. And we’re in the middle of the most dramatic education reform in the country,” stated Walters. “We’ve got these incredible new standards, incredible new parent rights, incredible new accountability systems. We’ve got teacher recruitment at record highs.”
When asked if the SDE’s new training options for local, elected school board members would include instruction on district budgeting, fiscal management, available funding streams and options for school expenditures under state law, Walters responded, “Yes, and it’s free.”
“We’re offering trainings for school board members so that they actually respond to their communities,” continued Walters. “They should be fiscally responsible to their districts. They should be holding their local superintendents accountable because they’re the ones that are elected, they’re the ones that come from the community. So, what we’re going to do is make sure every school board member in the state is equipped with that. We’re going to eat the cost of that. Don’t go pay some other organization that’s going to go out and weaponize those dollars politically.”
Walters in 2026
Friday’s press conference brought no revelations about Walters’ political future. Will he seek reelection as the head of Oklahoma public education? Will he enter the governor’s race? Walters hasn’t said, but as of Friday, he publicly identified government spending as another area of policy disagreement between himself and the state’s overwhelmingly UniParty leadership.
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