OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — The leadership of the Oklahoma State Senate announced on Wednesday evening they will not hear any bills related to the next state budget that originated from the Oklahoma House of Representatives until further notice.

The State Senate began working on the state’s budget as early as last December, but the Senate Pro Tem and Senate Appropriations Chairman both said the House prefers to negotiate and craft a budget behind closed doors. They even accused them of “operating in darkness”.

“It is our conviction in the Senate that we started in the beginning to shine light on the budget process,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Roger Thompson (R-Okemah). “And if you go dark in the middle of that process, the entire process goes dark.”

Thompson and Pro Tem Greg Treat said the Senate requested spreadsheets that can be seen by the public and would act as a living document. The numbers would change as the House and Senate crafted the state’s next budget set to begin on July 1. However, Thompson said the House never supplied the Senate with the spreadsheets he said were vital to keeping the budget process open and understandable to the public.

“They accepted our spreadsheets and they indicated that we would receive theirs on Tuesday, April 2. We did not,” Thompson said.

Thompson and Appropriations Vice Chair Chuck Hall (R-Perry) told the House Appropriations Committee leadership that until the Senate received spreadsheets to work off of on House proposals, they would not hear any House appropriations bills.

Treat said last winter the Senate was looking at the state budget earlier than ever because for years many people felt the process was secretive and not transparent. The Senate passed its version of the state’s next budget in mid-March, but the House did not carry out a similar process.

“We will have true budget hearings and not just check-the-box budget hearings,” Treat said in December.

House Speaker Charles McCall (R-Atoka) called the move “political theater”, and he said communication between the House, Senate, and Governor Kevin Stitt has been positive and things were progressing nicely before the stoppage was announced.

McCall said the House had no desire to go into a special budget session after the regular session is Constitutionally required to adjourn on May 31.

Last year, so much time was spent on education reform that state lawmakers in both chambers rushed to put a budget together in May, and then they called themselves into special session to possibly override any vetoes issued by Stitt.

The stoppage does not impact non-budget bills such as crime, gun rights, regulations, and education reforms that don’t require any money to be attached to them.