Alva Review-Courier -

During the Alva Community Coffee and legislative update held Feb. 21, Sen. Casey Murdock spoke about his bill to put back the 1,000-foot drug-free zone around schools, making violation a felony. He said he authored this bill at the request of the district attorney in Guymon who called him after a school incident. Murdock said the bill does not include marijuana, just hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin and fentanyl.

Having attended the Board of Equalization meeting Feb. 18, Murdock discussed the outlook for the state budget. Last year there was talk of a $300 million carryover. That dropped to $200 million and now they're looking at an $85 million shortfall. He said when he began serving in the legislature, the state was $611 million short and then $1.3 billion short. "$85 million slows us up; we can handle it," he said. However, he worries that next year will be a tough budget year unless something happens.

"We really need an uptick in this world market," Murdock said. He'd like to see the U.S. delivering compressed natural gas to Europe and cut the Russians off so Europe's not so dependent on them. He said Oklahoma is very dependent on the oil and gas industry. It's not so much the gross production tax but what it does for local economies. However, the state has a billion dollars in their savings account for these tough times. "We can absorb it," he said of the $85 million shortfall.

The senator said he ran a coyote bill where you could shoot coyotes at night. "Coyotes are nocturnal. That's when they eat the baby calves," he explained. That has been dropped. He said he struck a deal with Wildlife to take care of that in rules.

Murdock discussed the amount of ad valorem taxes being tied up in protests by oil and gas companies. While rates vary by counties, he said area schools generally receive about 80 percent of ad valorem taxes so these protests directly affect school funding. That protested amount is sent to escrow and it stays there until it's settled.

"I'm a firm believer. This is America. You should be able to protest your taxes," he said. He had been working on a bill to try to get everybody to the table to see if companies can file fewer protests. He said his bill is not moving forward. There's an identical bill on the house side of the legislature that is still active.

In conclusion, Murdock talked about the importance of this year's census. He said he was as guilty as anyone. He didn't fill it out in 2000 or in 2010. "At the time, I didn't feel like it was the government's business where I lived, how many toilets I had in my house," he said.

"After I got elected, I saw how much federal dollars are tied to that census number," Murdock said. He became more knowledgeable about the census process. "Almost every dime of federal dollars that come into Oklahoma is tied to that census." In 2010 it was estimated only 75 percent of Oklahomans filled out the census. In northwest Oklahoma, it was about 65 percent. "What that tells me is this part of the state is leaving 35 percent of federal dollars on the table."

Rep. Carl Newton added, "They want a census of everybody, everybody residing in the state of Oklahoma. They do not have to be a citizen, and they're not going to notify immigration."

"They've taken the question off that even asks if you're an illegal citizen," Murdock said. "ICE is not coming to pick you up."

He also reminded the audience that the census is how the state draws the districts on the political side for county commissioners, state representatives and state senators. "Rural Oklahoma is hemorrhaging people," said Murdock. "We are losing population." When the census shows population loss, the district lines have to be redrawn.

"When we redraw the lines, we're having to reach into urban areas to get the population, and we wind up losing rural legislators. We get urban legislators," he said. As a case in point, Murdock said lines were redrawn and people around Enid lost their wheat farmer representation to someone from Yukon.

"We have plenty of urban legislators at the capitol. The issue I see is not so much Democrat vs Republican; it's urban vs rural. That's the fight we have at the capital," he said. "We've just got to stand up and be counted."

A video of the meeting including the question and answer period may be seen at http://www.AlvaReviewCourier.com.