Opinion ID: 1426892
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: ถ 41 the fiscal policy of the state is built upon the precedents of this court, and the legislative and executive departments of government are entitled to predictability and stability in decisions which affect the public purse.

Text: ถ 42 The people, as well as the legislative and the executive departments of government are entitled, especially in matters of the state purse, to count on predictability. This enactment, providing for the improvement of roads and bridges, had broad-based, bi-partisan support, and it charts the course of transportation systems improvement and economic development for the state based upon years of prior precedent that has been well understood. ถ 43 The Legislature is fully aware of our previous decisions. In apparent recognition of this Court's approval of multi-year financing in U.C. Leasing, Inc. v. State ex rel. State Bd. of Public Affairs, 1987 OK 43, 737 P.2d 1191, the Legislature passed the Oklahoma Bond Oversight Reform Act (Bond Oversight Act), 62 O.S.1991 ง 695.1, et seq., effective July 1, 1987. It set forth procedures regarding the sale and the issuance of bonds or other obligations by state governmental entities essential to the economic well being of the state. [51] Governmental entities within the meaning of the Act include any agency, board, commission, authority, department, public trust of which the state is the beneficiary or other instrumentality of government. [52] The Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority falls squarely within the purview of the Bond Oversight Act. ถ 44 It is clear that the public functions and purposes of the state are all tied to a financing plan and funding mechanism which is dependent upon the issuance of bonds. The Bond Oversight Act makes no distinction between retiring the bond obligations from rental payments, user fees, or any other payment made by an officer, department, board, commission, institution or agency of the state when the payment is to pay the pledged obligation for the current fiscal year. [53] These bonds will be retired, whether directly or indirectly, at least partially from annual legislative appropriations. ถ 45 If we were, at this stage of our fiscal history, to abruptly change our mind and find that multi-year leasing agreements are unconstitutional, we would seriously jeopardize future economic development and replace certainty and progress with legal chaos in which state government financing would come to a standstill while the political branches painfully try to sort out the consequences of a change in the Court's jurisprudence.