By Barbara Hoberock, Oklahoma Voice
OKLAHOMA CITY – A lawmaker is criticizing decisions to award hefty raises and salaries to members of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s administration.
A report by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services for fiscal year 2025 found that while some leaders received no increases, 18 chief executive officers were given pay increases of 10% or more in fiscal year 2025.
The report shows that John Budd III, who was hired to fill a newly created post at the Department of Commerce, is earning $300,000 to run the agency.
His salary is 112% more than the more than the agency’s prior leader, which was $141,000.
Meanwhile, Blayne Arthur, who runs the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and serves as Stitt’s secretary of agriculture, received a nearly 40% pay hike. That’s in addition to receiving a 14.29% raise the prior year.
Arthur’s current salary is $223,750, according to the report.
Rep. Andy Fugate, D-Del City, said Arthur’s raise and Budd’s new salary are out-of-line given that most state employees are making significantly less than their counterparts in the private sector.
“I’m tired of hearing our governor talk about how we don’t have money for things and we need a flat budget when it’s very clear that his agencies are not acting in that same manner,” he said.
He called Budd’s salary “outrageous,” and said the raises given to Arthur look “really, really bad.”
A recent Office of Management and Enterprise Services report found that state employee pay is 48.05% below market. Many state employees have not received a general pay hike since 2019, according to the report.
“It is crazy to hear anybody defending paying market rate for senior executives in state government when everybody below them is not being paid anywhere close to market rate,” Fugate said.
Tevis Hillis, a Stitt spokesperson, said the governor brings in people with a variety of private sector experience. She did not specifically answer a question about whether some of the salaries are excessive.
Chase Horn, a spokesperson for the state Department of Commerce, said Stitt’s office negotiated Budd’s salary.
He said Budd is the first chief executive officer following the passage of a new law restructuring the agency. It requires that Budd be compensated “in a manner that compares equally to similar positions in the private sector,” Horn said.
Budd previously served as the state’s chief operating officer and as director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. He also worked for the George Kaiser Family Foundation and was chief strategy officer at Sonic.
“Renaming somebody’s position to CEO in the name of giving them a pay raise is just offensive,” Fugate said.
Perhaps Budd should be earning 50% of the market, which is what state employees are earning, Fugate said.
Arthur’s salary is within the established statewide pay structure, said Bryce Boyer, communications director for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
Christa Helfrey, an OMES spokesperson, said agencies only report changes in compensation if there was an increase in the executive salary in the fiscal year being reported.
