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  • Sen. Sean Burrage was guest speaker Tuesday at the Rotary Club of Claremore luncheon, during which, he visited with the crowd about the upcoming legislative session and answered questions from Rotarians. Tom Fink

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February 2, 2012

Burrage briefs Rotarians ahead of annual session

Tom Fink Claremore Progress

CLAREMORE — Sen. Minority Leader Sean Burrage paid a visit to the Rotary Club of Claremore Tuesday, briefly visiting with Rotarians at their weekly luncheon, as he readies to return to the state capitol.

“We meet the first Monday of February through the last Friday of May,” Burrage said. “We don’t have to meet all those weeks, but those are the only times we can meet — those 16 weeks.

“After five years (at the state capital), I’ve figured out that everything we do can be boiled down to two main things — one, we spend your money, and that’s about half our job,” he said. “The other thing we do is make or change laws, so everything we do is some extension of one of those two main categories.

“When it comes to spending your money, when I first got to the capitol, our state budget was $7.1 billion, although there’s a lot of money which comes from federal government which goes straight into education or straight into healthcare that we don’t appropriate,” he said. “In addition to healthcare and education, there are other core agencies which require the bulk of our appropriations, such as public safety and transportation — those core areas receive 90 percent of the state budget’s appropriation, with the remaining 10 percent being used on many, many other agencies.”

Although Sen. Burrage said state revenues have been up in recent years, some of these monies originate from (federal) stimulus money, and “one time” resources, presenting a “best case scenario” of a flat budget.

Burrage also touched on Healthcare Exchange, the need for infrastructure improvements, even at the state capital, child welfare services, and answered questions from Rotarians, before encouraging all to take an active part in their local and state governments.

“By my last count, I’d voted more than 1,300 times — that’s more than 1,300 times which I chose to vote in favor of or against something and I can tell you, I certainly haven’t heard from my constituents nearly that many times,” he said. “The only way that we as your representation at the capitol can know how to best speak for you is for you to let us know how you feel about the issues. Anyone who knows me will tell you, my door’s always open (at the capital), so if you’re at the capital, please stop and let me know what’s on your mind — either come by, or call or e-mail — the only way we can accurately speak for you is if you speak for yourselves.”

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