Oklahoma County Budget Board votes to reallocate federal CARES funds after months of backlash

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Millions of federal CARES Act dollars originally allocated to Oklahoma County’s jail trust was reallocated to a program to help struggling businesses and organizations. 

“The chairman’s office does not have the authority cancel a meeting that has been called by two members,” Commissioner Carrie Blumert, District 1, said. 

That was last Thursday when a special meeting of the Oklahoma County Budget Board was cancelled last minute. 

“I’ve lost a lot of blood over this,” Oklahoma County Treasurer Butch Freeman said. 

The meeting was called by Blumert and Freeman, partially due to roughly $25 million in federal CARES Act dollars that were sent back to the county by the jail trust earlier in the week. 

The meeting was then cancelled by Commissioner Kevin Calvey, the chairman of the budget board because he didn’t call it, according to a notice Blumert and Freeman received from the county clerk’s office. 

However, state statute, Title 19, clearly states that a special budget board meeting can be called either by the chairman or any two members of the board. 

The meeting was then rescheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m. 

“I move to recess this meeting until November 19th at 10:30 a.m.,” Calvey said at the beginning of the meeting.

“Um, hold on. We have some people here to present,” Blumert replied. 

“There’s a motion and a second,” Calvey said. 

Freeman then weighed in. 

“They’ve already got something like 300 small businesses signed up that can be helped by this money and it’s wrong if we have the opportunity and not withstanding, what is it the 19th?” he said. 

“Correct, it’s when our regularly scheduled budget board meeting is,” Calvey said. 

“That is nine more days that we could be helping people,” Freeman replied. 

Ultimately, the item failed and the meeting continued. 

An item to reallocate $15 million of the returned $25 million then passed, with only Calvey voting no. 

Those dollars will go to the Oklahoma Industry Authority to help businesses, non-profits and other organizations struggling during the pandemic. 

After the vote, the room erupted with cheers from citizens in the crowd who spoke during public comment. 

“I feel a lot better. We worked really, really hard to get to this point and to get this passed,” Blumert said. 

KFOR has been trying to reach Calvey for comment about last week’s cancelled meeting and he has not replied to our requests.