OK, $21 million isn’t that big of an amount. And, when you consider it, framed against the state’s entire budget of more than $7 billion, well, it’s actually a pretty small amount.

But that’s not the point.

Because that $21 million is a bad debt. It’s the total amount owed by the state to many of its cities and towns for disaster cleanup costs.

Right now, the State of Oklahoma — the land of the Red Man, the 46th star — isn’t payin’ its bills. In fact, it’s more than a year behind on paying back $21 million it owes for clean-up cost associated with the 2008 ice storm.

When you ask municipal leaders about the issue, they shrug their shoulders and say, “well, that’s just the way it is, it takes the state a long, long time to pay.”

Sorta like a dead-beat bill payer. Only this dead-beat is the same one that beats the drum when you (or your city) owes them money.

You would think the arrangement would be simple.

When a disaster strikes (such as the ice storm), the Federal Emergency Management Agency pays 75 percent of the clean-up costs. Local governments — for example, the City of Moore or the City of Norman — pay 12.5 percent of the cost.

And the state is supposed to cover the remaining 12.5 percent.

Now, with regards to last year’s ice storm, it seems everyone else has written their check.

Except the state.

Officials with the state’s emergency management agency have their hands tied. They can only spend the funds appropriated by the Legislature.

It comes down to the Oklahoma legislature.

Yes, folks, once again, we’re dependent on the 149 boys and girls at the Capitol.

And right now they don’t have a way to pay what they owe. Instead, a bunch of them want to grandstand and talk about important issues such as monuments to the Ten Commandments or housing “terrorists” in Oklahoma.

Or they want to pontificate about the need for additional tax cuts when they owe millions to the cities and towns.

That’s wrong.

And it’s not good policy.

If state lawmakers want to help pull Oklahoma out of this recession and make sure life continues to improve here in the land of the red dirt, then they need to do the right thing.

They need to pay their damn bills.