Oklahoma Legislation Update Part 1

Capitol Considerations 

by Senator Micheal Bergstrom

Miracle at the Capitol, For Now

In a period of just over 15 months, we had two regular legislative sessions and two special sessions, with the second special session continuing on concurrently during most of the last regular session. At times it felt like we were permanently stuck in Oklahoma City. What a mess. But then a miracle happened. According to the state constitution, we had to wrap up our session by the last Friday in May, the 25^th. We finished up three weeks early.

So, what did we accomplish during the last few months at the Capitol?

The big item, of course, was the teacher pay raise and the common education budget. Those two things and the revenue sources for them were set in place before the teacher walkout ever began. We were able to approve the largest teacher pay increase in our state’s history, as well as fund a pay raise for state employees, many of whom have gone nearly a decade without a pay increase. Textbooks are back to being a line item in the budget. Common education is getting a 19 percent increase in the next budget (which means it receives 52 percent of appropriated dollars in the state budget) and more students will be able to enroll concurrently in high school and college courses since we bumped that funding up by 500 percent.

Of course we had matters other than education we needed to focus on. I’ll touch on some here and then cover more in a future column.

Something I hope will help us rein in spending at state agencies is a system for forensic audits of agencies that we put in place and began funding. The commission in charge of this will be answerable to the legislature so we can search out areas of waste.

I am looking forward to taking a good hard look at the spending at the State Department of Education.

The Department of Human Services will see a $24.6 million funding increase and a fully funded Pinnacle Plan, with a 7 percent increase for Medicaid Advantage waivers, and Developmental Disability and Group Home rate increases. The agency will also see a 5 percent increase on foster care and adoption rates and $2 million increase for the Developmental Disabilities Services Division (DDSD) wait list.

This is very important for service providers like Home of Hope in my district.

The Office of Emergency Management will be given $4 million for disaster relief, while the Department of Agriculture will receive $400,000 for rural firefighters.

Criminal justice needed our attention, especially with our prisons currently at 114 percent capacity. Senate Bill 1600 allocates $11 million in criminal justice reform initiatives, including $5 million to the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, $1.1 million to Oklahoma Indigent Defense System (OIDS) and $1 million to the District Attorney’s Council. There is also $4.8 million going to the Department of Corrections (ODOC) to implement an electronic offender management system.

We’re looking for common-sense solutions to help us better address Oklahoma’s prison overcrowding by finding better ways to hold nonviolent offenders responsible. We worked on adjusting sentencing guidelines. Slowing prison population growth will allow the state to save hundreds of millions of dollars that can be redirected to education, health care, mental health services and other crucial programs.

We passed a bond issue for ODOC to make major repairs on some facilities. One facility, because of maintenance expenses, averages about $40,000 per inmate annually while the prison system overall averages under $20,000 to house inmates. The repairs should help significantly lower that first number.

We also approved a package of budget limit measures to ensure legislative oversight of agency spending. It is my hope we will be doing more and more budget limit measures and line item controls to keep agency heads from playing games with their budgets.

The budget is balanced, putting the state in its strongest fiscal position in recent history.

For now anyway.

But you remember that miracle where we finished the session early? Well, I hear there might be some folks who hope to throw the budget under the bus, maybe with a petition initiative, and so maybe it won’t be all that long before we’re back in Oklahoma City fixing another fine mess.

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Senator Bergstrom's Bills On Governor's Desk

Capitol Considerations 

by Senator Micheal Bergstrom

Legislative Update from Your Senator

Every session legislators file bills they hope to see become law.  This year, as the Senate author, I had a number of bills that have done just that.

There were, of course, some bills that did not make it to the Governor’s desk.  So first let me describe one bill that died then I’ll talk about some that survived.

Imagine you were in a profession that Oklahoma decided to begin licensing, but after the legislation was passed you were never notified that you now needed a license to operate your business, then the deadline for being grandfathered in passes and you might have to close up shop. Well, that is exactly what happened to thousands of massage therapists.

My bill, Senate Bill (SB) 1063, was originally intended to fix that issue, but then I was contacted by law enforcement, a massage therapist organization, the licensing board, and the human trafficking task force. They wanted to make sure there was language in the bill to help keep prostitution and the human trafficking, which often accompanies it, out of facilities that offer massage therapy.

We had a great bill because all those interested parties worked together with me on it. Then it bogged down in the House. Rep. Charles Ortega and I are committed to getting the bill through next year.

Now on to the living.  So far the Governor has signed six of my bills and I have two more pending. Here’s the ones that have been signed so far.

SB 1089 deals with oversize and overweight permits for transporting extra large loads on state highways, and SB 1114 requires the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) to protect the highway corridors that those extra large loads are transported over. These bills were important for bringing manufacturers into the state who were hesitant about relocating here because our legislation was outdated compared to almost every state in the nation.

These bills mean more high paying jobs for Oklahomans.

House Bill (HB) 2625 was a simple change to language referencing retired peace officers that should better protect Oklahoma citizens’ fourth amendment rights.

HB 2632 provided the same protection from civil liabilities to a church that homeowners and businesses have under the Stand Your Ground law. The purpose of this bill is to make sure places of worship cannot be sued out of existence if someone within the church uses deadly force to protect those within the church from an attacker.

More churches and church members are preparing to protect themselves if there is such an attack. I felt it was important to make sure they couldn’t be sued for trying to save lives.

HB 3311 requires a greater emphasis on Civics as the State Board of Education (SDE) revises its K-12 social studies curriculum.

SB 1566 authorizes cooperation between the Tourism Department, the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) and SDE in the development of tourism material and educational material regarding Oklahoma’s Civil War Battlefields, including the Cabin Creek Battlefield south of Vinita.

Civil War Reenactments are becoming more and more popular and it is my hope we will see this soon begin again at the Cabin Creek Battlefield.

These materials will not only guide folks to the historic sites, but will help educate our young people on this important and fascinating part of our history.

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