'Red Tape Task Force' looking for education line items to cut

This month, a 51 member task force came together for the first time, in an effort to identify areas in the education budget that can be cut.

State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister created the "Red Tape Task Force."

"It was certainly time in our current budget crisis to examine how we spend the time and how we spend resources," Hofmeister said.

When all is said and done, lawmakers at the Capitol, will likely have to cut near $1 billion from the budget next session, meaning nothing is safe from cuts. Oklahoma educators say they've already been working not enough, for too long. Now the prospect is nerve-wracking.

The task force is supposed to come up with several real solutions for saving by the end of the year.

"Things that may have been part of a good idea, a plan years ago, but with the need to have increased dollars in the classroom, it's time to call for a Red Tape Task Force to really examine why we do what we do, where we have loss of time on instruction in the classroom and really where we can save the dollars that are very short," Hofmeister said.

Hofmeister said this is an initiative that would be good to use on a yearly basis.