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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 the Associated Press reported on how Oklahoma lawmakers are targeting assistance programs for needy Oklahomans. David Averill writes that House Speaker TW Shannon seems to be sponsoring bills designed to play well in a Republican primary campaign without concern for the possible consequences. The House delayed a vote on Speaker Shannon’s bill to ban Medicaid from covering the morning after pill because lawmakers realized it might jeopardize the program’s federal funding.
School finance officials say they are growing increasingly alarmed by dramatic new estimates of tax revenue losses from the intangible tax ban amendment approved by Oklahoma voters last fall. NewsOK writes that more air came out of the tires of the state’s Justice Reinvestment Act when Governor Fallin rejected federal grant money that would have helped get the prison reform law off the ground. The House passed a bill that would prevent Oklahoma from issuing bonds to fund repairing the Capitol or completing other unfinished state projects until current bonds are paid off.
A bill to overhaul Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation court that sped through the Senate will be slowed down in the House of Representatives. Oklahomans are debating the value of early childhood education after President Obama suggested Oklahoma’s program as a national model. Companies that benefit from Insure Oklahoma premium assistance for their employees are preparing for the program’s demise. The Tulsa World reports that state law forbids Oklahoma officials from submitting the names of people with mental health records to the national background check system used for gun purchases.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has escalated its investigation into Chesapeake Energy and Aubrey McClendon. Oklahoma Watch interviewed Oklahoma Water Resources Board director J.D. Strong about disputes that are complicating the state’s water crisis. The Number of the Day is how many Department of Defense civilian employees in Oklahoma who will be furloughed as a result of the sequester. In today’s Policy Note, Time Magazine has an in-depth investigation into why American health care bills are so high.
In The News
Oklahoma legislators take aim at needy Oklahomans
As Republican legislators look for ways to tighten the state’s budget belt, and score points with an increasingly conservative electorate, they are targeting federal assistance programs popular among low-income and needy Oklahomans. Last year, the GOP-led Legislature passed a measure subjecting welfare recipients to drug tests, and so far this year close to a dozen measures have been introduced targeting assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also called food stamps, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families, or unemployment benefits. Some of the bills create new requirements for those who receive assistance, like requiring recipients to work more hours, or prohibit certain people, like those convicted of drug crimes or with $5,000 or more in assets, from receiving benefits.
Read more from the Associated Press.
Bumper sticker bills
For the past couple of weeks legislative committees have been busy advancing a flurry of bills introduced by the new speaker of the House, T.W. Shannon, R-Lawton. The fact that Shannon’s name appears as author bodes well for their passage, at least in the House. The bills deal with a variety of subjects – welfare, Obamacare, marriage, taxes. But they share a couple of things in common: They are bumper-sticker measures that seem designed to warm the cockles of Republican primary voters’ hearts. And they seem to be written without concern to possible consequences.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
House ‘morning after’ pill vote delayed
The Oklahoma House delayed a vote Thursday on a bill that would prohibit the state’s Medicaid authority from paying for emergency contraception coverage, after Speaker T.W. Shannon raised concerns that his proposal might jeopardize the program’s federal funding. Shannon’s proposal would prevent the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, which oversees the state’s SoonerCare Medicaid program, from covering the use of the so-called “morning-after” pill. Many conservatives say they consider the pill’s use to be an abortion and don’t want the state supporting it. Rep. David Derby of Owasso returned the bill to a calendar committee Thursday at Shannon’s request. When it might come back up for a vote is unclear, because Derby told his colleagues the bill would be amended before being reassigned a voting date by the committee.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Schools fear steep drop in tax revenue from last fall’s amendment on intangible property
School finance officials say they are growing increasingly alarmed by dramatic new estimates of tax revenue losses from the intangible tax ban amendment approved by Oklahoma voters last fall. The Oklahoma Tax Commission initially estimated the new tax break for more than 250 companies centrally assessed by the state, including AT&T, Cox Communications, American Airlines, and various utility and railroad companies, at $50 million. But more recent estimates indicate the actual figure could exceed $100 million. “We believe the estimate given by the Tax Commission last year when the voters were voting on State Question 766 to be grossly underestimated,” said Steven Crawford, executive director of the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration. “Corporations got a huge tax break – a $100 million tax break on the backs of children.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma prison reform law takes another hit
More air came out of the tires of the state’s Justice Reinvestment Act when the governor’s office decided recently to reject federal grant money that would have helped get the prison reform law off the ground. The legislation, pushed by former House Speaker Kris Steele and signed by Gov. Mary Fallin, was designed to slow the state’s prison population growth and reduce recidivism rates. All of this requires money on the front end, with cost savings projected in the future. But the governor’s proposed budget for the Department of Corrections included only a small bump over last year, not nearly enough to cover these new costs DOC will incur.
House passes bill to limit bonds
Oklahoma would not be able to issue more bonds to fund repairing the Capitol or completing other unfinished state projects — at least, not until some of the current debt is paid off year — if legislation approved by the state House on Thursday becomes law. The proposal from Republican House Speaker T. W. Shannon would restrict state debt in bonds and leases to 28 percent of general revenue, which is at least $5.3 billion for the current fiscal year, according to estimates from the Board of Equalization. The state currently holds about $1.5 billion in tax-supported debt, which means Shannon’s plan would leave little leeway for additional bonds until current bonds are paid off. Senate Republican leader Brian Bingman voiced concerns, saying after the vote that imposing a limit would harm Oklahoma’s bond ratings and increase service payments.
Read more from the Associated Press.
House to take close look at workers’ compensation bill
A bill that would overhaul Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation court and replace it with an administrative system that sped through the Senate will be slowed down in the House of Representatives for a closer look, House Speaker T.W. Shannon said. Shannon, R-Lawton, said he generally supports the measure, but the House will take its time with Senate Bill 1062 to look at how the bill would reduce compensation benefits available to injured workers. “Our main concern is that injured workers are not penalized and that the company that provides the benefits is able to do so in an affordable manner and that it doesn’t become a hindrance to doing business in Oklahoma,” Shannon said. “I haven’t seen the Senate bill to know exactly, but I think I like a lot of what I’ve heard about it. What I like about it the most is that it goes to an administrative system.”
Lawmakers argue benefits of early childhood education
Oklahoma’s preschool programs encouraged President Barack Obama to invest more nationwide but opposition came immediately, including from some of the state’s lawmakers. Opponents point to an impact study of Head Start released in October by the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 346-page report found clear and statistically significant evidence that Head Start improved developmental outcomes in all measures in the preschool years but much dissipated by the end of third grade. “Why are people seeing that as a slight to early education?” said Diane Horm, director of the Early Childhood Education Institute at the University of Oklahoma and George Kaiser Family Foundation endowed chair. “It’s more of indictment of the first- through fourth-grade systems, not early childhood.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Insure Oklahoma companies steel themselves for program’s demise
At 92 employees, Cimarron Trailers falls among the ranks of U.S. employers — those with 50 or more full time equivalent workers who, starting Jan. 1, must provide health insurance to its employees or face steep annual penalties under health care reform. Cimarron, which makes custom aluminum stock trailers in Chickasha that are sold nationwide, has offered group health insurance since it opened February 2004. The problem: since 2009, some 42 percent of its eligible workers take advantage of slashed monthly insurance payments under Insure Oklahoma — a 7-year-old, state-run income- and family size-based premium assistance program for qualifying individuals and employees of businesses with 99 or fewer workers. Insure Oklahoma may die in December, paradoxically, because of health reform.
National background check system lacks names of Oklahomans with mental health adjudications
State law forbids Oklahoma officials from submitting the names of people with mental health records to the national background check system, yet officials say they are still in compliance with federal law. Meanwhile, legislators are working to change the state law to allow the state courts to share that information with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS, and create an appeals process for people who feel they should not be on the list. Gun stores and pawn shops that sell guns use NICS to quickly check the background of an individual before a gun is sold.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
SEC steps up probe of Chesapeake, Aubrey McClendon
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has escalated its investigation into Chesapeake Energy Corp and its Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon for a controversial perk that granted him a share in each of the natural gas producer’s wells. The investigation, disclosed on Friday by Chesapeake in an SEC filing, comes nine days after it said an internal probe of the well program and McClendon’s finances revealed no “intentional” wrongdoing by the executive. Regulators in the SEC’s Fort Worth, Texas, office have been looking into the Founder Well Participation Program (FWPP) that grants McClendon up to a 2.5 percent interest in every well that Chesapeake drills. He must also pay his share of well costs.
State’s water crisis complicated by disputes
Everywhere you look, people are worked up about water. The U.S. Supreme Court will rule soon on a water dispute between Oklahoma and Texas. The state is in mediation with American Indian tribes over southeast Oklahoma water. The entire state is suffering from a three-year drought despite recent rainfall and snowstorms. Lake levels have fallen and communities are imposing water rationing. People near Canton Lake are mad at Oklahoma City for draining the reservoir so Lake Hefner won’t dry up. Many of these disputes wind up on the desktop of J.D. Strong, executive director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.
Quote of the Day
We believe the estimate given by the Tax Commission last year when the voters were voting on State Question 766 to be grossly underestimated. Corporations got a huge tax break – a $100 million tax break on the backs of children.
–Steven Crawford, executive director of the Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administration, on a new estimate showing Oklahoma’s abolishment intangible property taxes could cost more than twice what was originally thought.
Number of the Day
The number of Department of Defense civilian employees in Oklahoma who will be furloughed as a result of the sequester, reducing their gross pay by $123.9 million
Source: The White House
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Bitter Pill: Why medical bills are killing us
When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last March that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Stephanie’s father had been treated there 10 years earlier, and she and her family credited the doctors and nurses at MD Anderson with extending his life by at least eight years. Because Stephanie and her husband had recently started their own small technology business, they were unable to buy comprehensive health insurance. For $469 a month, or about 20% of their income, they had been able to get only a policy that covered just $2,000 per day of any hospital costs. “We don’t take that kind of discount insurance,” said the woman at MD Anderson when Stephanie called to make an appointment for Sean. Stephanie was then told by a billing clerk that the estimated cost of Sean’s visit — just to be examined for six days so a treatment plan could be devised — would be $48,900, due in advance.
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Bullies ( GOP )always attack the most defenseless, the young,old,and poor.