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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.
Gov. Mary Fallin’s office released 100 pages of emails on Monday that it withheld last year regarding her decision to reject federal funds to create a state health-care exchange and expand Medicaid. While Fallin said she needed to withhold some records to protect the “deliberative process” involving policy decisions, most of the emails revolve around the political cost of accepting federal funds for health care. You can see all of the e-mails here.
Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel said the county’s jail will not have enough money to sustain operations since the Department of Corrections began pulling inmates out and moving them to state facilities. None of the 11 firms asked to bid on auditing Tulsa County jail’s daily inmate cost want the job. With juvenile crime down significantly, Tulsa County’s 55-bed juvenile detention center is almost half empty after this weekend. A lawsuit filed Monday accuses an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper of raping a Tulsa woman after pulling her over in a traffic stop.
The Oklahoma Department of Human Services set a new record in collecting $362.5 million in child support payments last year, but unpaid child support in Oklahoma still totals $2.2 billion. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says more than 1,800 unaccompanied immigrant children were processed through Fort Sill before the facility was closed last week. The Tulsa World shared the story of an Oklahoma couple who had been together 20 years but ran out of time waiting for Oklahoma’s marriage laws to change before one of them passed away. NewsOK profiled a conservative judge who became the swing vote in the 10th Circuit Court decision overturning Oklahoma’s same-sex marriage ban.
Oil and gas driller Continental Resources will build two water recycling and processing centers to support the company’s drilling in Garvin and Stephens counties. A Prague woman is suing drilling wastewater disposal well operators over an earthquake that toppled a chimney onto her and may require her to get knee replacement surgery. U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor will speak at the University of Tulsa on Sept. 10.
The Number of the Day is the total number of adult Oklahomans who received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families payments (commonly known as “welfare”) in May 2014. In today’s Policy Note, Wonkblog discusses new research showing the 24 states refusing to expand Medicaid will lose $423.6 billion in federal funds from 2013 to 2022.
In The News
Fallin emails show debates on politics of health-care decisions
Gov. Mary Fallin’s office released 100 pages of emails on Monday that it withheld last year regarding her decision to reject federal funds to create a state health-care exchange and expand Medicaid. Fallin withheld the emails from among more than 50,000 it released to the Tulsa World and other media outlets last year. The governor cited “executive privilege” in withholding the documents, claiming the need to receive candid advice without concern for public reaction. While Fallin said she needed to withhold some records to protect the “deliberative process” involving policy decisions, most of the emails revolve around the political cost of accepting federal funds for health care.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma County faces budget woes as state offenders migrate to prisons
The Oklahoma County jail will not have enough money to sustain operations, unless a change is made in state Corrections Department policy, Sheriff John Whetsel said. Department Director Robert Patton in April began pulling thousands of state inmates out of county jails throughout Oklahoma and moving them to state facilities. The state’s prison system has been close to maximum capacity for years, and inmates routinely are held in county jails after they are sentenced, awaiting an open bed in a state prison.
Audit of Tulsa County Jail Costs Hits a Snag
None of the 11 firms asked to bid on auditing Tulsa County jail’s daily inmate cost want the job. County Commissioner John Smaligo said the backup plan is asking the state auditor’s office to do it. “The downside to that is that the auditor’s office has indicated that if we were to hire them to do this, it could be as long as three months before they are able to begin the audit, and then it could take them as long as two months to complete the audit,” Smaligo said.
Read more from Public Radio Tulsa.
Juvenile Crime Down in Tulsa County
Tulsa County’s 55-bed juvenile detention center is almost half empty after this weekend. “We — over the weekend — only had 29 beds of those filled, and only five of those were new intake cases,” Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau Director Brent Wolfe said. “Clearly, there was not a lot of juvenile crime over the weekend. It’s good news.” Wolfe said juvenile crime has been on a downward trend nationwide for the last 10 years. Locally, the annual number of referrals to the juvenile bureau has dropped from more than 5,000 to fewer than 3,000.
Read more from Public Radio Tulsa.
Lawsuit alleges OHP trooper raped Tulsa woman during traffic stop
A lawsuit filed Monday accuses an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper of pulling a woman over last month, making her perform sexual acts while he drove his patrol vehicle, then stopping and raping her at a secluded location. The trooper named in the lawsuit, Eric Roberts, was identified by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol last week as having been suspended on July 24 for allegations of misconduct, Capt. George Brown said.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
DHS puts squeeze on delinquent parents
Unpaid child support in Oklahoma totals $2.2 billion, an unacceptable figure given the hardship that lack of payment imposes on the dependents of a delinquent parent. That’s the negative news. Let’s shift to the positive: The impressive record of the Department of Human Services Child Support Services Division, which through its hard work, collects nearly $1 million daily for children owed back child support. The $362.5 million collected last year in 206,776 cases — another record — is but the latest achievement in an impressive track record.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
1,800 immigrants processed through Fort Sill
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says more than 1,800 unaccompanied minor children were processed through Fort Sill in southwestern Oklahoma before the facility was closed last week. Spokesman Kenneth Wolfe for HHS’ Administration for Children and Families says 1,861 minors were processed through Fort Sill. The temporary shelter opened in June and its operations were closed last Wednesday.
See also: Debunking myths about migrant children at Ft. Sill from the OK Policy Blog.
Couple, together 20 years, runs out of time waiting for Oklahoma marriage law to change
They’d been a couple almost 20 years when last October Kim Woodard turned to Jerry Custer and said: “Let’s get married!” The west Tulsa couple researched hotels online, found a florist, bought rings and new clothes. They booked plane tickets to California, where months earlier, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. But a week before they were supposed to leave, Woodard sprained his ankle and could not travel. Not long after that, his overall health started to go downhill.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma judge on 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals defies expectations in same-sex marriage case
Eight years ago, some of the leading Democrats in the U.S. Senate didn’t want to make Jerome A. Holmes the first black judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They were concerned that Holmes, then an Oklahoma City attorney in private practice, wouldn’t be open-minded when it came to civil rights and protecting people from discrimination. Holmes had written opinion pieces, some for The Oklahoman, blasting affirmative action.
Continental Resources builds two water recycling centers
Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources Inc. next month will become the latest oil and natural gas producer to build a water recycling and processing facility in the state.The company is building recycling centers in Garvin and Stephens counties, where they will support Continental’s rapidly expanding drilling effort in the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province, or SCOOP. “In designing our water recycling facilities, we wanted to reuse water without detrimentally affecting our wells,” Continental Resources engineer Anthony Luvera said Thursday at the Tri-State Oil and Gas Convention in Woodward. “It took some planning, but we finally got there.”
Woman Injured In 2011 Earthquake Suing Disposal Well Operators
The 5.7-magnitude earthquake that struck near Prague, Okla., in November 2011 toppled Sandra Ladra’s chimney, raining rocks “on her lap and legs.” Ladra on Aug. 4 filed a lawsuit against energy companies that operate disposal wells she claims caused the quake. She is seeking $75,000 in actual damages plus punitive damages, the Journal Record‘s D. Ray Tuttle reports.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to speak at TU
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor will speak at the University of Tulsa on Sept. 10, TU announced Monday. Sotomayor will participate in a “fireside chat” for students and faculty, which will be moderated by Professor Robert Spoo. The presentation will be at 1 p.m. in the Lorton Performance Center on the TU campus.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Quote of the Day
“I do not like the direction this is going…we sound like we agree with seceding from the union. It is obstructionist. It is not constructive or productive – it is just sour grapes. It is not leading, it is taking the easy way out. And it is does not acknowledge the facts.”
– Katie Altshuler, Gov. Fallin’s Policy Director, in an email to the Governor’s Chief of Staff discussing whether the state should create Oklahoma’s health insurance exchange. The email was part of a trove of documents ordered released on Monday following a lawsuit over their release (Source: http://bit.ly/VekNBz).
Number of the Day
2308
Total number of adult Oklahomans who received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families payments (commonly known as “welfare”) in May 2014.
Source: Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Another argument against the Medicaid expansion just got weaker
We learned late last week that the decision by 24 states to reject Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion comes as a startling cost —$423.6 billion in lost federal funds from 2013 to 2022, according to researchers at the Urban Institute. So how are states justifying their decisions to leave that much federal money on the table? One of their main arguments is that the federal government will eventually renege on its generous funding commitment to the Medicaid expansion. But based on the 49-year history of the Medicaid program, that claim doesn’t hold up, according to Urban Institute researchers in a finding that hasn’t received as much attention.
Read more from the Washington Post.
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