Alva Review-Courier -

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The problems will be familiar in the 2017 Oklahoma legislative session: crowded public schools with teachers desperate for a pay raise, overcrowded prisons, a Highway Patrol facing furloughs and dozens of other cash-strapped agencies that have cut services to the bone.

But lawmakers who return to the Capitol in February will also be faced with a budget hole of nearly $870 million — about 12 percent of state spending — resulting from slumping energy prices, years of tax cuts and costly tax subsidies for businesses and industries.

It will be the third consecutive year the Re...