Monday, Feb. 8, 2021

Welcome to Week 2 of the Oklahoma Legislature. The first four days of session made Week 1 seem surprisingly busy. The full Senate suspended rules to fast track an extension of digital public meetings, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously voted down a bill to classify most abortion as murder, and the House Appropriations and Budget Committee unanimously advanced some big bills about state finances. Below, you will find information to help make sure you know what happened last week and are informed about the week ahead.

If you know others who would like to keep up with their state government each Monday morning from February through May, please forward them this newsletter sign-up link.

Thank you for starting your week with NonDoc.

30 seconds:
SB 1031 on House floor agenda

Make sure your laptops and phones are charged. This afternoon, the Oklahoma House of Representatives is expected to send Gov. Kevin Stitt SB 1031, which is the bill advanced by the Senate last week to extend digital public meetings until Feb. 15, 2022, or until 30 days after Stitt ends his emergency declaration regarding COVID-19, whichever comes first. (Passed last March, the original statute authorizing video and teleconference meetings expired in mid-November.)

Other legislation involving the Open Meeting Act may be heard later this session — which is good, because it shouldn't take a pandemic for public bodies to be required to post their meeting notices and agendas on their websites — but SB 1031 is expected to be the first bill signed into law this session.

1 minute:
Be prepared to vote Tuesday

Yeah, we know: It feels like we just had an Election Day! But Tuesday, Feb. 9, municipalities, school districts and even a an OKC-metro legislative district are holding elections. Voting runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so be sure to check whether there is a local election in your neighborhood.

If you live in OKC, Edmond or Norman, our team has previewed your local elections, and all of our previews can be found here. Be a good sport and share that page with your neighbors or on social media, because an informed voter is a happy voter.

5 minutes:
Yama Hama, there's some drama

The first week of the 2021 session heated up fast with two events. First, Senate Floor Leader Kim David (R-Porter) was censured last Monday by Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-OKC). David eventually revealed the reprimand to NonDoc and said it was not written out but that it did involve a removal from floor leader duties for one week. Having mended some fences and committed to learning from her controversial comments that led to the censure, David is expected back at the helm of the Senate floor starting today.

Meanwhile, the Legislative Office for Fiscal Transparency dropped a draft of its report on how Gov. Kevin Stitt's administration spent more than $1.2 billion in federal CARES Act funding, and the early verdict was: curiously?

LOFT director Mike Jackson detailed three key findings in the lengthy report:

1. Spending decisions and processes "lacked structure and clarity";
2. Lots of money "was used for pre-existing needs and government modernization";
3. Oklahoma's "ongoing state needs would be underfunded if not for additional aid."

Go ahead and read the report for yourself, and note that the Stitt administration's lengthy and frustration-laden official response can be found starting on page 96. In it, Oklahoma Chief Operating Officer John Budd and former Stitt administration official Mike Mazzei bristled at the "evaluation," claiming it does not meet the definition of that word.

"LOFT chose to conduct an urgent in-flight exercise significantly distracting the CARES FORWARD team while we worked to deliver essential aid to Oklahomans based on an inflexible federal deadline of Dec. 30, 2020," Budd and Mazzei wrote. "The CARES FORWARD team always expected — and still expects — to spend a significant amount of time after Dec. 30 looking at all documentation and organizing materials for the audits that will come."

Whether the Stitt administration agrees with the assessment or not, media and members of the public have seized on some of the revelations in Jackson's report, such as the red and green "comparison matrix" between approved and rejected projects (page 17), as well as a potentially problematic missed opportunity to shore up the state's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund (page 28).

The public was set to witness the full LOFT joint legislative committee question Stitt officials about those topics, but Thursday's hearing was postponed owing to a health situation in Budd's family. The hearing will likely be rescheduled, however, so keep an eye out.

1 hour:
Podcast talks #oklaed with reporter, House Education Chairwoman Rhonda Baker

If you eat, sleep and inhale Oklahoma education news, make sure you catch the latest episode of NonDoc's podcast, Live from the News Dungeon.

This week's co-host is NonDoc education reporter Megan Prather, and the episode — Learning is a lifelong endeavor — also features a 10-minute interview with House Common Education Committee Chairwoman Rhonda Baker. If you are crunched for time, jump to various topics at the following timestamps:

• 6 minutes: Historical nuggets about early Oklahoma education;
• 9 minutes: A discussion about in-person education and distance learning;
• 20 minutes: A brief interview with Rep. Rhonda Baker (R-Yukon);
• 34 minutes: Discussion about pending legislation;
• 47 minutes: An overview of issues surrounding Epic Charter Schools
• 58 min: Our donor relations segment, which this week focuses on how the Walton Family Foundation "has been incredibly hands off" while providing NonDoc with a grant to hire an education reporter.

10 more seconds?

Online legislative resources