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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 bodies of people who die in fatal accidents, crimes and suicides in Tulsa and eastern Oklahoma are being transported to Oklahoma City for autopsies and viewing because of a doctor shortage at the state Medical Examiner’s Office. NewsOK reports that school consolidation can lead to longer bus routes with longer days for schoolchildren and thousands of dollars in added fuel and insurance costs for districts. NewsOK also examined historical reasons for Oklahoma’s high number of school districts.
Oklahoma was ranked as the worst state in the nation for the prevalence of predatory payday loans. Since August 2011, federal officials have closed 14 Oklahoma immigration cases using prosecutorial discretion in order to focus enforcement efforts on dangerous individuals. Sen. Constance Johnson continues to push for medical marijuana in Oklahoma. She has introduced a medicinal marijuana bill every year since she was first elected in 2005, but has yet to receive a hearing in committee.
Lobbyists increased gift-giving to lawmakers for the third straight year. House Speaker Kris Steele announced the creation of another panel to take a look at tax credits and economic incentives. Public petitions to audit local governments in Oklahoma are being increasingly used to address the concerns of residents. The number City of Tulsa workers injured on the job is more than three times the national average for local government employees.
The Washington Post reports on resistance to the individual mandate for health insurance in Oklahoma. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt asked a federal judge to lift a stay on his lawsuit challenging the new health care law, despite the Supreme Court ruling that it is constitutional. An Oklahoma drug rehab facility operated by the church of Scientology is being investigated for multiple deaths.
In today’s Policy Note, the National Review discusses how conservatives are beginning to backtrack on long prison sentences for drug offenses. The Number of the Day is how many Oklahomans live in “food deserts,” or areas with limited access to a full-size supermarket or grocery store.
In The News
Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Offices faces backlog
The bodies of people who die in fatal accidents, crimes and suicides in Tulsa and eastern Oklahoma are being transported to Oklahoma City for autopsies and viewing because of a pathologist shortage at the state Medical Examiner’s Office, a spokeswoman told the Tulsa World. The state agency has a backlog of hundreds of pending cases and its shorthanded staff of pathologists has been working overtime to keep up, said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer for the agency. “I’ve got one doctor who hasn’t taken a day off in a month,” Elliott said. Elliott said while the Tulsa office is authorized for three forensic pathologists, only one has been on duty since June. One position has been open “for quite some time,” she said, while the second has been open since May 29.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Longer bus routes take toll on children, budgets in rural school districts
Jaelin Cox, 6, attended prekindergarten three miles from her home in rural Cimarron County. She would get on the bus at 8 a.m. and be home a little after 3 p.m. A school bus makes its morning route on a dusty county road in the panhandle of Oklahoma. Oklahoman Archive photo Then Plainview Elementary School District closed in June 2011, sending about two dozen students to surrounding districts. Now Jaelin takes the bus about 25 miles to Boise City for school, getting home at 4:30 p.m. Bedtime is 7 p.m. so that she can catch the bus at 6:45 the next morning. In the Panhandle and other rural areas of Oklahoma, school district consolidation can mean longer bus routes — leading to long, tiring days for schoolchildren and thousands of dollars in added fuel and insurance costs for districts.
History sheds light on reason for high number of school districts
In the late 1800s, even before statehood, there was a law in the Oklahoma Territory that each township would have four school districts. This led to a situation where, by 1907, when the state was created, there were 5,656 districts, according to the state Education Department. That number decreased to 4,869 in 1930, 2,177 in 1950 and 653 by 1970. Going into this school year, there are 521 districts in Oklahoma — quite a reduction over time, but still enough for the state to rank eighth nationally for school districts per capita. There have been about 100 consolidations or annexations since 1977.
Nine states where lenders take your paycheck
Oklahoma has the highest percentage of residents who have used payday loans in the past five years, according to the Pew Study. Kate Richey, a policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, says there are more payday lending storefronts in Oklahoma than the “number of Walmarts, McDonalds, and Quicktrips combined.” In the state, a lender is prohibited from issuing a loan to a borrower with more than two outstanding payday loans. In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Richey explained that these regulations were intended to protect low- and middle-income households that are targeted by payday lenders who rely on “loan churning” for business as they encourage consumers to take out loans for each of their paychecks.
Immigration enforcement takes new approach
Since August 2011, federal officials have closed 14 Oklahoma immigration cases using prosecutorial discretion, a legal tool emphasized by the Obama administration to decrease backlogs and focus enforcement efforts on dangerous individuals. A report released by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows that 5,684 cases closed under this program account for 1.9 percent of the total pending cases in the administrative immigration courts as of the end of last September. Immigrants who qualify for prosecutorial discretion have their cases closed but not dismissed. That means their cases could be re-opened for deportation if the immigrant commits a crime or a new immigration violation. Immigrants whose cases are closed are allowed to remain in the U.S., but they are in legal limbo. They are not granted legal status or given a path to residency.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma State Senator supports medical marijuana
A longtime proponent of medicinal marijuana, state Sen. Constance Johnson, acknowledges she has few open advocates in the conservative Oklahoma Legislature. But the Oklahoma City Democrat said she remains optimistic that attitudes toward easing Oklahoma’s tough marijuana laws are shifting, and she said her hopes are buoyed by the possibility of the Republican-controlled Senate approving a study on the benefits of medicinal marijuana. Johnson, D-Oklahoma City,has introduced a medicinal marijuana bill every year since she was first elected in 2005, but has yet to receive a hearing in committee. Now she is petitioning the Republican chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee to allow a study before the Legislature reconvenes in February.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Lobbyist gift-giving to Oklahoma lawmakers is up again for third straight year
Lobbyists increased gift-giving to lawmakers for the third straight year as legislators this past session grappled with measures seeking to eliminate or reduce corporate tax credits, require a prescription for cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine and stating that life begins at conception. The increase in meals and gifts, such as pins, candy and tickets to Oklahoma City Thunder games, is up slightly compared with last year when lobbyists courted 30 freshman state representatives and senators, records filed with the state Ethics Commission show. Lobbyists reported spending $1,377 in meals and gifts — the most of any lawmaker this year — on Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, who returns to the post next year, and $1,229 on House Speaker Designate T.W. Shannon, R-Lawton, the fourth-highest amount spent on lawmakers.
Tax credit reform aim of new state House committee
House Speaker Kris Steele on Wednesday announced the creation of another panel to take a look at tax credits and economic incentives. A committee last year issued a number of recommendations, many of which were ignored by lawmakers who had said they wanted to pass a tax cut but failed to follow through. Reducing the state’s income tax rate was something that was highly touted on the campaign trail. Tax-cut supporters said incentives and credits needed to be reformed to pay for any reduction in the personal income tax. Rep. David Dank, R-Oklahoma City, will lead the new panel. Dank said the new panel will study criteria for credits and incentives. It will also evaluate preapproval, auditing and cost benefit analysis for credits and incentives.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Petitions for audits increase in Oklahoma towns
It started as a fight over dirt. But when Buddy Thompson, 64, felt he was getting the runaround by town hall in Dewar, he did what a growing number of residents across the state are doing — petitioned for an audit. Oklahoma law empowers residents to call for a state audit of any city, county, school district or agency by gathering 10 percent of the signatures of registered voters in the jurisdiction. It’s an oversight tool that State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones said is being used increasingly to address the concerns of residents, primarily in small towns. In April, the state auditor’s office investigated the town of Bernice and found violations of the Open Meeting Act and more than $100,000 in illegal fines, all because a resident started a petition drive.
City of Tulsa’s ‘weak safety culture’ costs millions in employee injuries, claims
City officials knew work-related injuries were a problem when they hired DuPont Sustainable Solutions to conduct a safety assessment review, but they may not have appreciated just how much of a problem it was. Dupont scored Tulsa a .9 on a 0 to 5 scale, with the consultants saying the city has a “weak safety culture” that does not connect individual compensation or departmental budgets to safety records. In February, the city reported its workers compensation costs had gone up 44 percent in eight years, to levels several times higher than comparable cities. Tulsa spent $10.5 million on workers’ compensation in the budget year ending June 30, 2011, the last year for which complete information is available. DuPont found Tulsa averaged 21 reportable injuries per 100 employees – an Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard – for 2008 through 2010, a rate more than three times the national average for local government employees.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Health insurance mandate faces resistance in Oklahoma
The Supreme Court may have declared that the government can order Americans to get health insurance, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to sign up. Nowhere is that more evident than Oklahoma, a conservative state with an independent streak and a disdain for the strong arm of government. The state cannot even get residents to comply with car insurance laws; roughly a quarter of the drivers here lack it, one of the highest rates in the country. When it comes to health insurance, the effort to sign people up isn’t likely to get much help from the state. Antipathy toward President Obama’s signature health-care overhaul runs so deep that when the federal government awarded Oklahoma a large grant to plan for the new law, the governor turned away the money — all $54 million of it.
Read more from the Washington Post.
Okla. attorney general asks judge to life health care suit stay
A month after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the nation’s health care overhaul law, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt asked a federal judge Friday to lift a stay on a lawsuit he filed more than a year ago challenging the law. Pruitt asked U.S. District Judge Ronald White in Muskogee to allow the state to address the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision, particularly its finding that the law’s individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance is permissible as a new tax on people who do not obtain insurance. Pruitt’s motion says the decision “raises new, and potentially significant constitutional questions” about the health care law. Pruitt filed the motion about a week after the federal government again asked that Oklahoma’s lawsuit be dismissed, saying the high court’s decision resolves issues raised by the suit, according to online records of the U.S. District Court in Muskogee.
Read more from the Durant Daily Democrat.
Rehab facility under investigation for negligence
Alive, but only just, Heather Landmeier blinks to communicate from a vegetative state. She has almost no control of her body below her neck and will be fed through a tube for the rest of her life. Landmeier, 27, overdosed on heroin and Oxycontin at a Tulsa hotel in March 2008. A day earlier, she was dismissed from Narconon Arrowhead, a state-licensed non-medical drug detoxification facility in Pittsburg County, records show. Landmeier’s family alleges in court documents that her dismissal was related to drugs and alcohol provided to her by Narconon staff. Landmeier’s case is part of a controversy that surrounds Narconon, a southeast Oklahoma center that uses practices commonly associated with Scientology and the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard. Since October, there have been three confirmed deaths related to the facility. Since 2005, there have been four other deaths – three of which were on the premises, according to state records.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Quote of the Day
They are literally having to ship the bodies to the capital (city). That makes sense in many ways except when you realize that these are human beings, not just paperwork.
-Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, on a doctor shortage at the Medical Examiner’s Office that is forcing the state to ship bodies of people who die in fatal accidents, crimes and suicides in Tulsa and eastern Oklahoma to Oklahoma City for autopsies.
Number of the Day
216,273
Number of Oklahomans who live in ‘food deserts,’ or areas with limited access to a full-size supermarket or grocery store, 2008
Source: USDA
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
The Drug War recedes?
Chris Christie is not a wimp, a hippie, or a countercultural icon. He’s not known for taking time out from budget negotiations to smoke dope, or for his sympathy for drug dealers. Yet he is a soft-liner on the war on drugs. That the combative New Jersey governor and Republican rock star — just tapped to keynote the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla. — vocally dissents from drug-war orthodoxy is another sign that the tectonic plates of the drug debate are shifting. Perhaps our appetite for spending billions and incarcerating millions, in the service of pieties immune to rational analysis, is not limitless after all. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Christie called the war on drugs “well intentioned” but “a failure.” He just signed a law to mandate treatment rather than jail time for nonviolent drug offenders.
Read more from the National Review.
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