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In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that Governor Fallin’s office released more than 50,000 pages of documents relating to the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but they refused to release dozens of documents, citing exemptions to the state’s Open Records Act that media experts say do not exist. You can download the full records release from the ACLU of Oklahoma here. Governor Fallin signed a bill to allow horse slaughtering for human consumption.
Oklahoma Watch reports that the state’s new third grade retention law could force a large percentage of children from low-income families to repeat the third grade. Oklahoma Policy Institute and CAP Tulsa previously released an in-depth report on the law. Norman parents interested in taking a stand on education policy in Oklahoma have formed a Parents Legislative Action Committee. The Oklahoma League of Women Voters is hosting “FOCU$ on Education!”, a panel discussion about the importance of funding public education in Oklahoma. The state Board of Education did away with an automatic waiver to graduation testing requirements for students who are accepted to college.
Two years after a new chief was hired, forensic investigators and pathologists at the Oklahoma medical examiner’s office say they are still overworked and behind on finalizing cases. OK Policy previously discussed why problems at the office are a clear example of how Oklahoma has failed to invest what is needed in crucial public services. The NewsOK editorial board writes that Oklahoma’s infrastructure concerns extend far beyond the crumbling state Capitol building and medical examiner’s office.
Amidst a revenue crunch from large income tax cuts, Kansas may issue $1.5 billion of pension obligation bonds. The Tulsa World writes that Oklahoma remains stuck in an outdated model of criminal justice policy. Rep. Richard Morrissette criticized measures in the Legislature targeting assistance programs for low-income and needy Oklahomans. OK Policy has been tracking bills that pose a threat to the safety net.
The unsanitary practices of a dentist in Tulsa may have exposed thousands of patients to H.I.V. and hepatitis. The Oklahoma Board of Dentistry said it’s never needed to inspect medical offices regularly. A federal appeals court in Denver has granted Hobby Lobby’s request to speed up a hearing of its legal challenge to contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
The Number of the Day is the proportion of Oklahoma children that participate in a local library program. In today’s Policy Note, Demos cites Oklahoma’s funneling of TANF money to marriage promotion campaigns as an example of how welfare block grants leave the safety net in tatters.
In The News
Oklahoma governor’s office releases documents connected to response to federal health law
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin’s office refused Friday to release dozens of documents surrounding decisions she made connected to the federal health care law, citing exemptions to the state’s Open Records Act that media experts say do not exist. In response to a request from several media outlets, including The Associated Press, the governor’s office released in digital form more than 50,000 pages of documents relating to the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a letter accompanying the release, Fallin’s General Counsel Steve Mullins said 31 documents consisting of 100 pages of materials were withheld from the press. “In this document production, the governor has invoked several legal privileges, including ones involving senior executive branch officials who are offering advice and counsel to the governor,” Mullins wrote. “These privileges are frequently referred to as the executive and deliberative process privileges.” But media law experts said there is no reference in the Open Records Act, Oklahoma Constitution or existing case law to such privileges.
Read more from the Associated Press.
Download the records from the ACLU of Oklahoma.
Bills to make government more transparent stall in Legislature
A number of bills making government more transparent and open are dormant for the session. The measures either did not get heard in committee or on the floor of the House or Senate by deadline. They may be taken up next session. One measure, House Bill 1452, by Rep. Jason Murphey, R-Guthrie, would have subjected the Oklahoma Legislature to the Open Meeting and Open Records acts. Other lawmakers filed similar measures that are also dormant. The measure was also introduced last year. “That has been very hard politically to do,” Murphey said. Another measure by Murphey would have created an appeals process when an open record request was denied.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma OKs horse slaughter law
Oklahoma is opening its doors to the horse slaughtering industry, with Gov. Mary Fallin signing a bill authorizing it in the state. The governor, who signed the measure Friday, said local governments can still act to ban horse slaughtering operations in their jurisdictions, The Oklahoman reported. The law goes into effect Nov. 1. “It’s important to note cities, counties and municipalities still have the ability to express their opposition to processing facilities by blocking their construction and operation at the local level,” Fallin said. “Should there ever be a processing facility planned, my administration will work with the Department of Agriculture to ensure it is run appropriately, follows all state and local laws, and is not a burden or hazard to the community.”
Read or fail law would flunk high percentage of Oklahoma 3rd Graders
Sand Springs principal Angie Teas grapples with a sobering fact: Nearly 40 percent of her third-grade students would have flunked last year if Oklahoma’s read-or-fail law had been in effect. The principal of Mark Twain Elementary School can count on one hand the number of third-graders retained during her seven-year career as a principal. Last spring, 25 of her third-graders scored at the lowest level, unsatisfactory, on the statewide reading test. Next year, under Oklahoma’s Reading Sufficiency Act, students with that score will have to repeat third grade unless they get an exemption or improve to grade level by the fall.
Read more from the Norman Transcript.
See also: Oklahoma’s New Third Grade Retention Law from Oklahoma Policy Institute
Parents form committee supporting education
Norman parents interested in taking a stand on education policy in Oklahoma have a new resource in the Parents Legislative Action Committee, whose first Norman meeting was Thursday evening at the Nancy O’Brian Performing Arts Center. Originally launched by parents of Jenks Public Schools concerned about downward trends in funding and policy, PLAC is slowly gaining ground as a statewide movement generating public school parents’ direct advocacy to legislators. Approximately 80 parents, teachers and administrators attended the inaugural Norman PLAC meeting and were presented a comprehensive summary of Oklahoma’s shrinking education budget and concerning legislation currently under consideration at the Capitol.
Read more from the Norman Transcript.
Upcoming Event: FOCU$ on Education Forum
The Oklahoma League of Women Voters is hosting “FOCU$ on Education!”, a panel discussion about the importance of funding public education in Oklahoma. Panelists include David Blatt from the Oklahoma Policy Institute; Sharon Rodine from the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy; Bradford Williams from Oklahoma State University; Levena Brown, the parent of a pre-K student in Oklahoma City Public Schools; and Terry Graham, a school board member for Burlington Public Schools. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 9th, 2013, 6:30 PM at the Springlake Campus of the Metro Technology Center in Oklahoma City. The forum will also be videoconferenced at locations across the state.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Education board kills ACE testing waiver
The state Board of Education on Thursday did away with an automatic waiver to the Achieving Classroom Excellence law for students who are accepted to four-year colleges or universities that use criteria-based admissions policies. The board approved the waiver just last May. The ACE law denies a high school diploma to any otherwise qualified senior who does not pass four of seven end-of-instruction standardized tests. The law prevented close to 600 Oklahoma seniors from receiving diplomas last year, the first time the new policy was in effect.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Pathologist looks to resuscitate Oklahoma medical examiner’s office
The pieces are in place for an improved medical examiner’s office in Oklahoma — now supporters say it’s time for the Legislature to act. Two years after a new chief was hired and a year after the agency gained $2.5 million in supplemental appropriations, forensic investigators and pathologists say they are still overworked and behind on finalizing cases. But with the roster of doctors expected to double over the next few months, all that’s really needed for the agency to regain accreditation is a new facility, said Dr. Eric Pfeifer, chief medical examiner. “By October of this year they’ll all be in place so I think you’ll really start seeing some change in workload distribution and turnaround time decrease,” he said. “Until then we’re still limping along with three pathologists.”
Previously: Getting what we pay for from the OK Policy Blog
Oklahoma’s infrastructure concerns extend far beyond Capitol
Oklahoma has a serious infrastructure problem. And we’re not just talking about the state Capitol or the state medical examiner’s office, buildings that have garnered tons of publicity in recent years because they’re in such bad shape. We’re talking about roads, bridges, dams and other vital infrastructure. All of it needs attention, as a study by the state chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers makes clear. Called “The Report Card for Oklahoma’s Infrastructure,” the study released in March involved more than 20 professionals, most of them civil engineers, from public agencies, private firms and nonprofit groups in the state. They spent a year and a half compiling and crunching data. They looked at such things as the condition of the infrastructure; past, current and predicted future funding; future need for those items; operations and maintenance, and the danger posed to the public by an ineffective system.
Kansas may issue $1.5 billion of pension obligation bonds amidst revenue crunch from tax cuts
Even as Kansas legislators scramble to find patches for USD 850m lost to income tax cuts, they are also considering a bill to issue USD 1.5bn of pension obligation bonds (POBs) to pay down a huge unfunded liability. House Bill 2403, sponsored by the Appropriations Committee, passed out of the Committee on Pensions and Benefits on Friday, 22 March, with broad bipartisan support in the legislature, according to Bernie Koch, executive director of the Kansas Economic Progress Council. The proposed debt would be backed by appropriations. But the income tax cuts championed by Governor Sam Brownback last year have created what H Edward Flentje, a professor at the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs at Wichita State University, calls “financial chaos”. The POB debt, he said, is “one of the crazy ideas that’s bouncing around in this atmosphere.”
Read more from the Financial Times.
DOC deficit, inmate population increase
No matter the year during the past three decades the situation remains the same – the prison inmate population climbs, outpacing the money needed to care for some 25,000 offenders behind bars. Other states, including Texas, have adopted strategies other than incarceration to deal with many nonviolent offenders, and still managed to keep the public safe and make sure that those who break the law are punished. Oklahoma remains stuck in the same outdated model: Send as many people as possible to prison, keep them there as long as possible and then, when their sentences are up, return them to communities with no skills and no coping mechanisms to adapt to life on the outside.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Lawmaker questions welfare fraud legislation
Another measure targeting federal assistance programs for low-income and needy Oklahomans advanced Thursday in the Legislature. “Why are they focusing on the fraud of particular people and having citizens becoming the fraud police?” asked Rep. Richard Morrissette, a member of the House of Representatives Government Modernization committee. “My friends on the right are hunting down a dead-end road. It’s a war on the poor, a systemic, consistent war on the least among us and that’s what this Legislature has been doing all session long.” The committee voted 8-1, with Morrissette opposed, to pass Senate Bill 456, which would authorize the Department of Human Services to post signs explaining how to report people who are using fraudulent means to get welfare payments.
See also: Threat to the Safety Net: Bills affecting low-income Oklahomans from Oklahoma Policy Institute
Oklahoma dentist’s patients warned of disease risk
The unsanitary practices of a dentist in Tulsa, Okla., may have exposed thousands of patients to H.I.V. and hepatitis, forcing him to close his offices while health officials investigate and test about 7,000 people who had visited him since 2007. Officials with the Oklahoma Department of Health began sending letters Friday to those patients, urging them to have their blood tested for H.I.V., hepatitis B and hepatitis C. The dentist, Dr. W. Scott Harrington, has offices in Tulsa and Owasso, a northern Tulsa suburb, and investigators said they found numerous health and safety violations at the Tulsa office, including nonsterilized and rusty instruments.
Read more from the New York Times.
Agency says dental inspections not necessary
The Oklahoma agency that accused a Tulsa oral surgeon of unsanitary practices, putting thousands of people at risk for hepatitis and HIV, says it’s never needed to inspect medical offices regularly. “This doesn’t happen,” Susan Rogers, the executive director of the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry, said Friday. “There’s not been a need for these inspections because we’ve never had a complaint like this.” That’s not unusual. Some other states don’t routinely inspect clinics, either, noting they don’t have the money and such incidents are so rare that the need just isn’t there. In Oklahoma, the Board of Dentistry’s small staff does inspections only if the agency receives a complaint. That’s what happened in the case of Dr. W. Scott Harrington, whose practice was inspected after officials determined a patient may have contracted hepatitis C while having dental surgery.
Read more from the Associated Press.
Federal appeals court grants Hobby Lobby’s request to speed case
A federal appeals court in Denver has granted Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.’s request for the entire court to hear its legal challenge over part of the Affordable Care Act that requires the company to cover emergency contraceptives for its employees. Typically, appeals cases are heard by a panel of three judges, but Hobby Lobby had asked the full court to hear the case — a request that federal appeals courts seldom grant, said Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is defending Hobby Lobby in its lawsuit. The company had asked the court to speed up the legal process because it faces potential fines of up to $1.3 million per day for failing to comply with the health care law beginning in July.
Quote of the Day
Why are they focusing on the fraud of particular people and having citizens becoming the fraud police? My friends on the right are hunting down a dead-end road. It’s a war on the poor, a systemic, consistent war on the least among us and that’s what this Legislature has been doing all session long.
–Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, speaking about a bill that would authorize the Department of Human Services to post signs explaining how to report people who are using fraudulent means to get welfare payments
Number of the Day
1 in 5
The proportion of Oklahoma children that participate in a local library program, FY 2009
Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
How welfare block grants leave the safety net in tatters
If the speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives gets his way, residents of his state will soon notice a barrage of advertisements promoting the benefits of marriage. In a bill that appears to be on track for approval, Speaker T.W. Shannon is proposing a blitz of pro-marriage public service announcements that would be paid for using money from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program. Shannon says the ad campaign will get “less than one percent” of the state’s allotment of TANF funds – in other words, enough to cover a full year of benefits for more than 400 single mothers of two. This questionable use of taxpayer money ostensibly meant for the social safety net is not unprecedented or even unique. In fact, TANF already picks up the tab for a program known as the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative – a cost of $2.8 million per year.
Read more from the Policy Shop.
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