This has been a busy week at the Capitol with multiple committee meetings and floor sessions. Multiple bills were heard in committee with many passing to the House Floor.

Three of my bills passed in committee this week.

House Bill 1208 would allow cemetery owners to reclaim unused burial spaces that are determined to be abandoned after a period of 75 years since the last recorded activity on the space, and after a reasonable search for heirs and beneficiaries.

This bill would require a cemetery owner to send a certified letter to the last-known address of the recorded property owner. The cemetery owner also would have to publish a description of the burial space in a newspaper of record. If no one claims the space after one year, ownership would revert to the cemetery. If the original owner or an heir were to come forward at a later date claiming the space, a comparable space would be given to them.

One of my constituents requested this bill to allow cemeteries to make better use of property cemeteries already own. The bill passed by a vote of 13-1 in the Business & Commerce Committee.

House Bill 1209 would waive the penalty for the carryover fee for those school districts that did not receive Foundation Aid or Salary Incentive Aid to pay for the teacher pay raise last year.

Some schools are off the funding formula for the educational part of state funding. Thus, they fund all or part of their educational needs from local ad valorem funds.

This bill passed the Appropriations & Budget Education Subcommittee by a vote of 11-0. It is now eligible to be heard in the full Appropriations & Budget Committee.

House Bill 1210 simplifies the tagging procedure for commercial vehicles. Right now a commercial vehicle owner has to have multiple commercial vehicles to be able to tag all of them at one time. This lowers that number to three. This will save business owners a large amount of paperwork and expense. It was a constituent request and has State Chamber of Commerce support. This measure passed by a vote of 10-0 in the Public Safety Committee this week.

Once bills pass committee they are eligible to be considered for a vote before the entire House.

I’ll keep you posted as the session continues.

Thanks again for allowing me to serve Northwest Oklahoma. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected], or call me at 405-557-7339. May the Lord bless you and our great State.