Budget cuts cost hundreds of Oklahomans their jobs

By Jennifer L. Brown

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Amy Wright is giving up on Oklahoma, packing up
her family and heading west.

Wright, one of about 370 state employees who've lost their jobs because of the budget crisis, isn't sticking around the Sooner State to look for another one.

"It's gotten to the point where there is really nothing keeping us here," she said.

The state has made $352 million in budget cuts this year because of declining tax revenues and a sluggish economy.

Wright, an Oklahoma Military Department worker who coordinated programs for troubled youth, loaded her two kids and their suitcases in the family car last weekend. The main agenda of their summer road trip to New Mexico, Colorado and South Dakota isn't hiking or sightseeing _ it's so she and her husband can find better jobs and opportunities Oklahoma isn't offering.

The Wrights aren't the only ones.

Carolyn Ihrig is headed for Memphis, Tenn., where she'll make at least $10,000 more a year as a music teacher. This was her last year teaching at an elementary school in Little Axe, where the school board scrapped its music program to pay the bills.

"When the program went, I went with it," she said. "The state isjust forget-it city. It's out of money. I'm walking into something that pays $10,000 to $12,000 more a year and I'm walking quickly."

Ihrig won't risk finding a new teaching job in Oklahoma only to get laid off.

"I don't want this to happen to me again," she said.

Both women feel they were shoved out of the state prematurely.

Wright and her husband, native Oklahomans, had planned to retire in Oklahoma. They did OK on her $27,000 salary and the $30,000 her husband earns as a police officer for a small town with its own budget problems.

But losing her job has Wright giving up plans to retire here near her parents and in-laws.

"That's been cut short _ real short," she said. "We don't drive fancy cars. We don't live in a really fancy house. We just try to make ends meet.

"God has a plan for us. He's definitely kicking us out of Oklahoma. We're trying to figure out where he wants us to be."

The Oklahoma Military Department cut about a dozen positions in its youth programs division and eliminated several outlets for children and teenagers in trouble with the law.

The agency will end a mentoring program with Oklahoma National Guard soldiers, and it is cutting back on a boot camp where teenagers do community service and learn life skills.

The Health Department is cutting 124 people, the Office of Juvenile Affairs is cutting 56 and the Department of Commerce got rid of 23 employees from its staff of 140.

About 370 state employees have lost their jobs because of cutbacks, and that number doesn't account for vacant positions that will not be filled, said Diane Haser-Bennett with the Office of Personnel Management.

Many Department of Commerce employees left the same day they found out their jobs were eliminated.

"There is a lot of sadness among the people that are still here," said department spokeswoman Meloyde Blancett-Scott. "Many of these people are still friends and have been a part of the Department of Commerce for years."

Oklahoma school districts have gotten rid of 5,205 teachers, administrators and other employees this year, according to a May survey. Districts notified 2,087 teachers their contracts would not be renewed.

If losing her job isn't enough, Wright says a note sent home from school with her son affirms her decision to leave Oklahoma. The boy's teacher offered to knock off a book report for any student who brought a box of wet wipes for the classroom.

She doesn't understand how the budget crisis got so bad.

"Everything is fine a year ago and all of a sudden we're broke," Wright said. "We've lived here our whole lives and now we're being pushed out of the state in order to find an economy where we can make a living."