Skip to main content

How to Spend $47 Million in 4 Months


The CARES Act passed by Congress has a provision to give funds to state and local governments. Out of this, Oklahoma County has been given the onerous task of spending $47 million by the end of the year. The caveat being all expenses must be related to COVID-19. Any money not used must be returned to the federal government. While the county is undoubtedly receiving a plethora of self-interested letters requesting a portion of the funds, there are a few ways to spend the money to the benefit of all Oklahoma County residents. This should not be read to condone spending money just because it is available. Government officials must remember that the money they spend comes directly from the taxpayer, and should only be spent in ways that benefit all or most of society.

Oklahoma County could also use the money to give grants to small businesses that were forced to shut down or otherwise damaged by the government’s actions related to COVID-19. Small businesses could use the money to avoid layoffs, rehire staff, and stay afloat as the economy recovers. They could also use the money to fulfill any government mandates related to COVID. There should be rules limiting which businesses qualify for this assistance. Businesses that were allowed to remain fully operational during the shutdowns would not qualify for this assistance, mainly larger businesses like Wal-Mart. This program could be extended to non-profits as well.

The CARES Act allows for funds to be transferred from the county to school districts. Taking some of that money to help schools in Oklahoma County prepare for in-person education would be a good use of that money. Schools can use the money for additional cleaning supplies. The money could fund hiring and training a pool of substitute teachers that could fill in for any teachers that fall ill or are at-risk. Only school districts that reopen fully would be eligible to receive the extra funding. This will further incentivize schools to reopen. The reopening of schools will help parents get back to work, which is a further boon to the economy.

One glaring change brought on by COVID-19 was a rise in mail in ballots for the primary election. Given the state’s experience with State Question 802, where the mail-in vote was highly lopsided and uninformed compared to the larger overall in-person outcome, alleviating the public's anxiety about voting in person should be a top priority. Ensuring proper precautions are taken at election sites would make voters more comfortable visiting their polling places, which would reduce the risk of tampering with mail-in ballots. Particular measures might include providing testing and protective materials for poll workers, having extra poll workers, and putting cleaning supplies in each voting booth. Ensuring the sanitary conditions will help secure the sanctity of the general election. This should be a top priority for Oklahoma.

Some of the money could be used to protect residents in nursing homes. Nursing homes house the population most vulnerable to COVID, the elderly who often have other maladies that make them particularly susceptible. Residents and caregivers should be tested frequently. Any caregivers that test positive should get partial pay and self-quarantine until they are no longer contagious. Residents who test positive should be moved immediately to a hospital where they can receive proper care. Money should also be used to ensure nursing homes are properly staffed and have the proper protective equipment.

While the connection to COVID-19 is less clear, an argument can be made that the County could use some of the funds to improve roads and traffic lights. Making travel less aggravating would help get people out of their homes and give a badly needed boost the local economy. The state of roads and bridges in Oklahoma is dismal, the American Society of Civil Engineers gives Oklahoma roads a grade of D and bridges a D+. A grade of D means the infrastructure is in poor condition and there is a strong risk of failure. With the influx of CARES money, a lot of work could go into repairing failing infrastructure in the county. The case could be made for repairing roads near hospitals which would free funds to improve other roads. 

The county has received a windfall, but it must be careful to spend it wisely and in accordance with the principles of good governance. The federal deficit falls on Oklahomans and Californians alike. If Oklahoma County cannot use the money in ways that will benefit all its residents, it has a duty to return the funds. The primary goal in spending the money should be economic recovery, with a secondary goal of ensuring safety for citizens.


Spencer Cadavero is a Research Associate at 1889 institute and can be reached at scadavero@1889institute.org.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.

Popular posts from this blog

Present Reforms to Keep the Ghost of State Questions Past from Creating Future Headaches

Oklahoma, like many western states, allows its citizens to directly participate in the democratic process through citizen initiatives and referendums. In a referendum, the legislature directs a question to the people — usually to modify the state constitution, since the legislature can change statutes itself. An initiative requires no legislative involvement, but is initiated by the people via signature gathering, and can be used to modify statute or amend the constitution. Collectively, the initiatives and referendums that make it onto the ballot are known as State Questions.   Recently, there have been calls to make it more difficult to amend the constitution. At least two proposals are being discussed. One would diversify the signature requirement by demanding that a proportional amount of signatures come from each region of the state. The other would require a sixty percent majority to adopt a constitutional amendment rather than the fifty percent plus one currently in place. ...
Read more

Licensing Boards Might Violate Federal Law: Regardless, They Are Terrible Policy

Competition is as American as baseball and apple pie. “May the best man win” is a sentiment so old it doesn’t care about your pronouns. The beneficial effects of competition on economic markets are well documented. So why do we let powerful business interests change the rules of the game when they tire of competing in the free market? Most of the time when an occupational license is enacted, it is the members of the regulated industry who push hardest in favor of the license. Honest competition may be fundamentally American, but thwarting that competition through licensing seems to be fundamentally Oklahoman. Oklahoma doesn’t have the most occupational licenses, but when they do license an occupation, the requirements tend to be more onerous than the same license in other states. But what if, instead of merely breaking the rules of fair play to keep out would-be competition, Oklahoma licensing boards are also breaking the law? Normally a concerted effort to lock out competition would v...
Read more

Protecting Unlicensed Occupations from Government-Sanctioned Cartels

Great care must be taken in repealing occupational licensing laws. No, not care in which licensing regimes are repealed or how quickly we are rid of them. They can all go, post haste (yes, that includes doctors and lawyers). Licensing hurts the economy to the tune of $200 Billion each year. A practitioner in a licensed field can expect to charge an unearned premium of 10-12 percent over his unlicensed peers. And licensing has shown almost no benefits in terms of improving public safety. The small benefits - such as a shorthand indicating which practitioners have received a minimum amount of training - could be better achieved through private certification without the economic harms visited by licensing regimes.   No, the care that must be taken is in the unintended consequences of repealing individual licenses. There are times when groups of practitioners will ask the government to regulate them not because they want those sweet monopoly profits (though surely they reali...
Read more

School Teachers Begging for Basics

What if a hospital’s administrators regularly told surgeons to make do without bandages, with dull scalpels, and little to no anesthetic while claiming tight finances? With all the money hospitals have , there would be questions about the administrators’ competence and possibly audits to look for malfeasance. Something like this needs to happen at Oklahoma City Public Schools. My wife is a teacher working in the Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) system. Last year, she came home telling me how there was no paper available for the notoriously few and regularly broken, undersupplied duplicating machines at her school. What’s more, there was no plan for the district to provide any. In the past, she was told, a parent had donated paper to that particular campus, but that parent had transferred his child to a private school. The school had surplus paper from previous years, but that was gone. There were no plans for the district to provide more. Now, I am well aware that educatio...
Read more