New school called overcrowded, violent

The new alternative school that just lost its principal in a resignation agreement with Tulsa Public Schools has been plagued by overcrowding and physical violence, a current employee and two former students say.

The teacher said more than half of the students at the Performance Training Program are gang members and that a significant number of them are in and out of jail and on probation through the Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau.

“No teachers are happy,” the teacher said.

Source: Tulsa World

OKLAHOMA CITY (March 12th, 2008) Today Republican House Leadership decided to give a tax break to the rich and throw the average Oklahoman under the bus. Representative Richard Morrissette, D- Oklahoma City, filed an amendment to House Bill 3103 which would have eliminated the sales tax on groceries.  This idea was in the 100 Ideas book, which was so passionately pronounced by Ex-Speaker of the House Lance Cargill, R- Harrah.  Ex-Speaker Cargill spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to advocate this book, only to vote against #25 in the 100 Ideas book, eliminating the sales tax on groceries.  House Bill 3103, which passed the House Floor, will give a sales tax exemption for people selling gold bouillon and rare coins.

“In a time of $110 barrel of oil and $3.10 per gallon gasoline at the pump and rising as we speak, House Republican Leadership thought it was more important to give a tax break to investors of gold bouillon than they did to working Oklahomans,” said Representative Morrissette.  “It is unbelievable that they would deny working Oklahomans a sales tax exemption on the most regressive tax there is, the grocery tax.  I want the working men and women of South Oklahoma City to know that I came within one vote of getting this done.  But yet, on an almost straight party line vote, the House Republican Leadership gave a tax break to the wealthy and well-to-do at the expense of working families.”

“The elimination of the grocery tax was a foundation of the House Republicans while they were in the minority.  I ask the People of Oklahoma, why have they forsaken thee?  The answer is that when it comes to helping working men and women, the Democratic Caucus in the House is fighting for you.”
Source: Press Release

By J.W. ELPHINSTONE, AP Business Writer

Americans’ percentage of equity in their homes fell below 50 percent for the first time on record since 1945, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

Homeowners’ portion of equity slipped to downwardly revised 49.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007, the central bank reported in its quarterly U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts, and declined further to 47.9 percent in the fourth quarter — the third straight quarter it was under 50 percent.

That marks the first time homeowners’ debt on their houses exceeds their equity since the Fed started tracking the data in 1945.

The total value of equity also fell for the third straight quarter to $9.65 trillion from a downwardly revised $9.93 trillion in the third quarter.

Home equity, which is equal to the percentage of a home’s market value minus mortgage-related debt, has steadily decreased even as home prices jumped earlier this decade due to a surge in cash-out refinances, home equity loans and lines of credit and an increase in 100 percent or more home financing.

Economists expect this figure to drop even further as declining home prices eat into the value of most Americans’ single largest asset.

Moody’s Economy.com estimates that 8.8 million homeowners, or about 10.3 percent of homes, will have zero or negative equity by the end of the month. Even more disturbing, about 13.8 million households, or 15.9 percent, will be “upside down” if prices fall 20 percent from their peak.

The latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index showed U.S. home prices plunging 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2007 compared with a year ago, the steepest decline in the 20-year history of the index.

The news follows a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association on Thursday that home foreclosures skyrocketed to an all-time high in the final quarter of last year. The proportion of all mortgages nationwide that fell into foreclosure surged to a record of 0.83 percent, while the percentage of adjustable-rate mortgages to borrowers with risky credit that entered the foreclosure process soared to a record of 5.29 percent.

Experts expect foreclosures to rise as more homeowners struggle with adjusting rates on their mortgages, making their monthly payments unaffordable. Problems in the credit markets and eroding home values are making it harder to refinance out of unmanageable loans.

The threat of so-called “mortgage walkers,” or homeowners who can afford their payments but decide not to pay, also increases as home values depreciate and equity diminishes. Banks and credit-rating agencies already are seeing early evidence of this.

On Tuesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested lenders reduce loan amounts to provide relief to beleaguered homeowners.

Source: Associated Press

by: BARBARA HOBEROCK World Capitol Bureau
2/29/2008

The deal also provides $2 million for the Rader Center.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Legislative leaders announced an agreement Thursday on a $24 million supplemental appropriation for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to help the financially troubled agency finish the fiscal year.

An additional $2 million will go to the Office of Juvenile Affairs, which will spend the money for improvements at the L.E. Rader Center in Sand Springs.

“It is critical that we address the immediate needs of our prison system, and this agreement does that,” Gov. Brad Henry said. “Our goal now is to craft a larger budget that will adequately fund corrections for the entire fiscal year and eliminate the need for annual supplemental appropriations for DOC.”

Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones said the money is needed to deal with growing prisoner numbers.

It will be used to pay for contract beds at private prisons, halfway houses and county jails.

“Yes, it is enough,” Jones said. “We are very appreciative of it.”

The Office of Juvenile Affairs was seeking a $4 million supplemental, said Gene Christian, its director.

The bulk of the money is needed to resolve a lawsuit filed against the Office of Juvenile Affairs by the U.S. Department of Justice involving education, safety, security, mental-health treatment and suicide prevention, he said.

The federal lawsuit stemmed from alleged conditions at the L.E. Rader Center, he said.

Christian said he had been very concerned that the money would not be forthcoming because of the nature of this year’s budget. Officials are predicting that the Legislature will have $114 million less than last year to spend.

“I’m glad they followed through on that,” Christian said. “It is a major step forward for us to be able to handle the lawsuit with the Department of Justice.”
Source: Tulsa World

by: David Crary, AP National Writer
2/28/2008  12:00 AM

NEW YORK — For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

The steadily growing inmate population “is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime,” said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

“We’re seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets,” she said in an interview. “They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state — but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective.”

The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

“The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens,” the report said.

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state’s crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state’s inmate population has increased by 600 percent.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State’s Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

“For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn’t been a clear and convincing return for public safety,” said the project’s director, Adam Gelb. “More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers.”

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation’s overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as “three-strikes” laws, that result in longer prison stays.

“For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling,” the report said. “While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine.”

The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails — a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.

The report said the United States is the world’s incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

Source: Tulsa World