Last Saturday morning Oklahoma Auditor Cindy Byrd was the featured speaker at the McGraph Breakfast, an ongoing event held at various locations throughout the Tulsa metro for 35-years. The collective purpose is to break barriers and introduce leaders to each other. Invitees include elected officials, tribal leadership, and top business/community leaders.
Mike Mazzei, former Oklahoma Secretary of Finance currently running for Oklahoma Governor, introduced her and described Byrd as, “the one statewide official who is 100% doing her job effectively for the taxpayers of Oklahoma.”
Byrd said she is proud to stand as Oklahoma State Auditor, but she is running for Lieutenant Governor to do more for Oklahoma.
Cindy Byrd is a fourth-generation Oklahoman from Colgate in southeastern Oklahoma, where she still lives today with her husband, Steve, and her entire family. Her mother taught school for 33 years, and her father remains a rancher, now sharing some responsibilities with her brothers. Byrd notes that Oklahoma has 463 towns with a population of 2,500 or less, and she believes her rural upbringing has helped her stand strong and not back down from the “crazy that sometimes happens at our state capitol.”
She attended East Central University (ECU) in Ada, Oklahoma, which provided a top university education close to home. To help pay for college, she worked nights at the Wrangler Genius Factory. She recounts that Wrangler was the heartbeat of her small town, employing 300 people in a town of 2,000, but the plant shut down when President Clinton signed the NAFTA deal, and those jobs left for another country, deeply hurting Colgate.
She emphasizes that manufacturing provides more jobs and higher income in rural areas than any other trade. Byrd notes that President Trump ended the NAFTA nightmare in his first term, and with his return, Byrd said, “It’s time to bring those jobs back to Oklahoma communities.”
Byrd said on Overall State Performance
Oklahoma ranks 49th nationally in education and performs poorly in healthcare outcomes, causing businesses to overlook the state. Despite 80% of state expenditures funding healthcare and education, low rankings in both areas indicate significant money management issues. Byrd believes Oklahoma’s inferior performance is due to money management, with waste preventing tax dollars from reaching their intended purpose. Nearly three hundred state entities, including boards, commissions, and agencies, make spending decisions, often forgetting the value and intended use of taxpayer dollars.
Byrd said on Outsourcing and Contract Issues
Part of Oklahoma’s financial issues stem from a lack of financially trained personnel to oversee finances, and the state circumventing competitive bidding laws by entering into vaguely written contracts.
Oklahoma outsources more contracts than the U.S. Department of Defense, and for the past eight years, part of the state’s checkbook has been outsourced to private vendors and consultants. This has increased costs, decreased service quality, and removed recourse for inferior performance, Byrd added.
Byrd said on Education System Issues
Half of Oklahoma’s budget is dedicated to education. In FY 2021, Oklahoma received around $7.6 billion for K-12 education, distributed among 546 school districts. Despite this, teachers often buy supplies with their own money.
Byrd’s personal takeaway from auditing Oklahoma’s two largest school districts is that attempts to fix education with “more programs, more services, more counselors, more technology” have not improved academic outcomes but have only added to rising costs..
Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) Audit: Under Superintendent Dr. Gist, TPS contracted out $29 million on consultants and $37 million on vendors, totaling $66 million not directly benefiting teachers or students.
For more detail, click here to read Auditor Cindy Byrd, CPA, Campaigns for Oklahoma Lt. Governor.
