Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth approves finance report and adopts FY2025 budget

The Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth voted to approve its finance report and adopt a proposed FY2025 budget after staff answered commissioners’ questions about invoices and grant estimates.

Mehboobul Hark, OCCY business manager, presented the finance report, saying the office’s year‑to‑date utilization is about 81 percent and outlining spending by category — personnel, travel, administrative expenses, and grants — and a reported combined cash balance of $622,390. Hark and other staff told commissioners that some payments have not yet been invoiced and that encumbrances from FY2023 were carried into FY2024 for closeout.

During discussion, commissioners probed a flagged $200,000 line item and asked whether delayed invoices or timing issues explained discrepancies; staff said some contracts were budgeted at a higher level but ultimately contracted at a lower amount and that invoices had not yet been submitted, which is why payments did not yet appear in the ledger.

The commission then heard a presentation on the proposed FY2025 budget. Staff described an increase in total appropriations that includes one newly funded FTE (approximately $89,405 in salary/benefits as presented) and a new annual maintenance contract for the agency’s database (to be contracted with the University of Oklahoma). Staff also described a modest increase in grant revenue (including PDG and other reimbursable grants) and noted a decline in projected carryover compared with the prior year. Because several numeric amounts in the public presentation were garbled in the transcript, staff clarified that the appropriation increase presented reflects an $850,846 increase over the previous year and that detailed line‑item numbers are available in the posted packet.

After questions about database funding and federal reimbursement timing, commissioners called the roll; the motion to approve the finance report and the motion to adopt the FY2025 budget each passed on roll‑call votes.

The commission directed staff to provide additional detail about grant timing and to include the finalized numbers in the budget documents posted with the minutes.