Oklahoma Watch (https://oklahomawatch.org/author/paulmonies/)
Oklahoma lawmakers closed out the 2019 session Thursday after nearly four months of debate on hundreds of bills that could impact the state for years to come. Here’s what the Legislature did, and didn’t do, this year, from the $8.1 billion spending bill to criminal justice reform.
The state this week confirmed its first measles case of the year, which occurred as the nation is experiencing its largest number of measles cases in a quarter century. Here are answers to some common questions about the measles outbreaks, the first confirmed Oklahoma case and the state’s vaccination policies.
This year’s criminal justice reform measures include changing bail bonds, making State Question 780 retroactive and giving greater clarity to prosecutors on when to charge drug possession with intent to distribute. Here are five questions surrounding the bills.
Attorneys in Oklahoma’s opioid lawsuit have bragged that they slept on cots in their offices and went through millions of pages of evidence. But one private attorney in the case, a former legislative leader, stands to make $5.6 million in the recent settlement against a drugmaker despite having no obvious role documented in court filings.
A strategic plan laying out one-year and four-year goals for Gov. Kevin Stitt’s administration, obtained by Oklahoma Watch, includes securing gubernatorial control of all state agencies and boards, changing the educational system and launching an initiative aimed at social issues.
Native American tribes across the country were left out of a major part of a new federal tax incentive for opportunity zones, with their governments unable to pool investments to support projects in some of the nation’s poorest areas.
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s financial disclosure form shows varied holdings in real estate, banking and energy across multiple states. Stitt is the first governor since Robert S. Kerr to come directly to the office from a private company without having held public office first.
A new federal tax incentive to encourage long-term investments in low-income areas includes most of downtown Oklahoma City and Tulsa and other pockets of prosperity in the state, but excludes many areas that are impoverished.
Oklahoma district attorneys have more than $56 million in uncollected fees on their books and are being advised they should hire collection agencies to go after offenders to recover more of the debt. But aggressive collections could collide with criminal justice reform efforts.
Gov. Kevin Stitt used his first State of the State address to call for an additional pay raise for teachers, a more modernized state government and greater control over state agency leaders’ employment.
What was absent, however, might be as important as what was included.