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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 state lawmakers filed nearly 40 bills this week dealing with workers’ compensation. Senate Leader Brian Bingman has filed bills to strike a portion of the law requiring the staggered election of public company directors. Chesapeake successfully lobbied for this requirement in 2010 but has reversed position as part of a pledge to change its corporate governance. Dozens of bills have been filed in the Oklahoma Legislature expanding who can carry weapons and where they can carry them, including parks, public meetings, and schools.
This Land Press explained why states’ best bet for improving mental health care is to join the Medicaid expansion. In NewsOK, Oklahoma Republican lawmaker and physician Doug Cox offered three reasons why Oklahoma can still accept the Medicaid expansion in a responsible way. The Tulsa World profiled the incoming Oklahoma Health Care Authority CEO Nico Gomez. Forty years after Roe v. Wade, NewsOK profiled a long-time abortion provider in Oklahoma.
The Tulsa World discussed how Oklahoma remains a cellar dweller in most quality-of-life and poverty measures. Oklahoma’s dropout rate fell to 2.4 percent during the 2009-2010 school year, which ranks Oklahoma 14th in the nation for the lowest high school dropout rate. This year, eight school districts have taken advantage of a state Education Department grant that rewards districts that share superintendents. The state Education Department is looking into the reason three Oklahoma school districts went over the legal limit for administrative costs.
The Number of the Day is the percentage of Oklahoma lawmakers whose full-time occupation is as a legislator. In today’s Policy Note, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz explains how extreme inequality is holding back the economic recovery.
In The News
Workers’ comp topic of bill flurry
State lawmakers filed nearly 40 bills this week dealing with workers’ compensation. Some propose various changes to Oklahoma’s court-based system, and others would result in sweeping overhauls. District 14 Rep. Arthur Hulbert, a Fort Gibson Republican, filed a bill that would create an administrative system within the Oklahoma Insurance Department. Another bill, by Rep. Mark McCullough, R-Sapulpa, would create an administrative system overseen by a commission of political appointees. Some bills propose changes to the benefit structure under the present adversarial system. Others would allow employers to opt out of the state system by providing a qualified private insurance plan.
Read more from the Muskogee Phoenix.
Legislation proposed to change public company director elections in Oklahoma
The leader of Oklahoma’s state Senate has filed a pair of bills that would modify the state’s laws on public company directors, a change pursued by Chesapeake Energy Corp. as part of a pledge to change its corporate governance. The bills strike a portion of the law Chesapeake successfully lobbied for in 2010 requiring the staggered election of public company directors. The Oklahoma City energy company asked the Legislature for that change following shareholder approval of proposals in 2008 and 2009 calling for the annual election of all directors. In seeking the earlier law, Chesapeake said staggered board elections ensure stable management and leadership. Three other states — Indiana, Iowa and Massachusetts — also mandate staggered boards. Corporate governance experts say annually elected directors are typically more responsive to shareholders.
Legislation seeks to expand carry of guns
Even as President Barack Obama proposes measures to restrict the type of weapons available to the general public, dozens of bills have been filed in the Oklahoma Legislature expanding who can carry weapons and where they can carry them, including parks, public meetings and schools. Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb formed a task force to study and make recommendations on school safety. Lamb, a former Secret Service agent, will release the recommendations for legislative discussion. State Sen. Patrick Anderson, R-Enid, said there is considerable discussion ongoing in the wake of the shootings in Connecticut. He anticipates a number of bills addressing the issue. However, he doesn’t expect any progress until the Lamb Task Force has made their recommendation.
Read more from the Enid News & Eagle.
Medicaid expansion could help improve mental health
Recent mass shootings have sparked conversations not only about gun control, but also about America’s mental health policies. President Barack Obama, in addition to signing 23 executive orders to jump-start stricter gun-control regulations, also promised sweeping reform to strengthen the country’s mental health system. And, according to The Huffington Post, Gov. Mary Fallin, who opposes most of Obama’s gun control legislation, does support improving the country’s mental health policies. The Oklahoman reported that she planned to “ask lawmakers next month to put more money toward mental health services in the state.” Stateline, the news service for Pew Center on the States, “few states are poised to spend their own money to reverse as much as a decade of budget cutbacks” in the area of mental health. States’ best bet? Obama’s Medicaid expansion—the one Fallin has said Oklahoma won’t participate in.
Read more from This Land Press.
Oklahoma lawmaker: Gov. Fallin should reconsider Medicaid expansion
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is now the third Republican governor to agree to the expansion of Medicaid in her state under the Affordable Care Act, despite understandable pressure from my fellow Republicans to have nothing to do with Obamacare. Brewer, like me, is no fan of President Obama or his policies. But Brewer, like me, knows that something must be done. I respect Gov. Mary Fallin’s decision not to participate in expansion of Medicaid in Oklahoma, but I believe this state should proceed toward a path of conservative, common-sense reform of the Medicaid system to make health care available for our poorest neighbors. Oklahoma can still accept the dollars in a responsible way for three reasons.
Incoming CEO for Oklahoma Medicaid agency faces challenges
As he talks about running Oklahoma’s third most expensive agency and leading the state through the challenging future of health-care reform, Nico Gomez tosses a baseball from hand to hand. Gomez, 41, has been tapped to be the next CEO of the $5 billion-a-year Oklahoma Health Care Authority – Oklahoma’s Medicaid agency – but there was a time, just out of high school, when his job was umpiring Little League baseball games. “It’s a great metaphor for life,” Gomez says. “It taught me respect for people who have to make decisions.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
40 years after Roe v. Wade, doctor reflects on time in Oklahoma
For almost 40 years, Dr. Larry Burns has done one thing: abortion. Abortion rights activists might dub him a hero for running one of Oklahoma’s three abortion clinics. Anti-abortion advocates might go so far as to call Burns a murderer. “I don’t expect people to agree with me,” Burns said. “It seems like people don’t want to know that you really exist until they need you, and when they need you, they really need you.” Before Roe v. Wade, there were a limited number of places women could get legal abortions. There were clinics in Kansas, New York and California, but that was about it, Burns said. It’s estimated that the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Some ended up with permanent injury.
State continues its struggle with poverty
Oklahoma remains a cellar dweller by most quality-of-life measures. The state’s scores in health and fitness are perennially poor; we spend far less on per-pupil funding for students than nearly any other state. We are near the top, for about 25 years running, in per-capita incarceration. We fare relatively poorly in level of education, and we have an alarmingly high number of Oklahomans living near or below the poverty line. We’ve sent flowers to Mississippi and several other southern states many times to thank them for keeping Oklahoma out of last place rankings.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Study: Dropout rate keeps shrinking
Oklahoma’s dropout rate fell to 2.4 percent during the 2009-2010 school year, a full percentage point below the national median that ranks Oklahoma 14th in the nation for the lowest high school dropout rate, according to a new study released Tuesday. The report from the U.S. Department of Education shows Oklahoma’s dropout rate has steadily declined since the 2005-2006 school year, when it was at 3.6 percent. Oklahoma tied with Vermont in the study that ranks the dropout rate for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The study defines a dropout as a student who was enrolled at any time during the previous school year who is not enrolled at the beginning of the current school year and has not successfully completed school.
Read more from the Norman Transcript.
Oklahoma school districts share superintendents
Superintendent Larry Larmon has two of everything — two phones, two email addresses, two offices. Two school boards. “It’s kind of like having two wives,” Larmon said. Osage Public Schools has about 200 students. Spavinaw Public Schools has half that. Together, the school districts have one superintendent: Larmon. This year, eight school districts have taken advantage of a state Education Department grant that rewards districts that share superintendents. The state will pay up to half of a superintendent salary to a maximum of $50,000 annually for three years. For the grant recipients, superintendent-sharing saves money. But it’s also a way for neighbors to help one another.
Three Oklahoma school districts spend too much on administration, officials say
The state Education Department is looking into the reason three Oklahoma school districts went over the legal limit for administrative costs. State law limits how much school districts can spend on administrative costs, such as superintendents, secretaries and consultants. The law exists to protect students, said Joel Robison, chief of staff for the state Education Department. “The desire is to get as much money into the classroom as possible for instructional purposes,” Robison said. The districts with excessive amounts are: Cameron, in Le Flore County, $58,000 because of a superintendent contract buyout. Thackerville, in Love County, $29,000 because of a superintendent contract buyout. Farris, in Atoka County, $10,000 because of superintendent salary.
Quote of the Day
The Affordable Care Act is now an unavoidable reality; states would be worse off turning down the federal dollars due to the uncontested problem that all states face with access for the working poor. My colleagues and I in the Legislature need to think in terms of how to solve this issue, not how to stop it.
–Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, an emergency room physician at Integris Grove General Hospital
Number of the Day
9.5 percent
Percentage of Oklahoma lawmakers whose full-time occupation is as a legislator, compared to 16.4 percent nationally in 2007
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Inequality is holding back the recovery
The re-election of President Obama was like a Rorschach test, subject to many interpretations. In this election, each side debated issues that deeply worry me: the long malaise into which the economy seems to be settling, and the growing divide between the 1 percent and the rest — an inequality not only of outcomes but also of opportunity. To me, these problems are two sides of the same coin: with inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying. Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth.
Read more from the New York Times.
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