Alva Review-Courier -

It's the time of year when much of the focus in the Legislature turns to the state budget process. It's the one constitutional duty we have each year – to pass a balanced budget.

As it does most years, things get a bit contentious before we come to an agreement the majority can live with.

This year, the Senate threatened not to hear any House appropriations measures until they received full budget spreadsheets from the House. The House Appropriations and Budget chair countered that we need to fix a problem with the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 education budget before we can complete numbers for FY25.

The problem with the education budget is an error that occurred in the drafting of the State Department of Education's (SDE’s) FY24 budget bill that left out the method of payment for longevity-based pay raises for teachers. The Senate proposed to order SDE to transfer money from the school funding formula to schools off the formula to pay the raises. This could be illegal and could lead to lawsuits. This is affecting about 40 Oklahoma school districts, including some in our House district. We're working on a viable solution to this, and then we can move forward in completing the FY25 budget. I'm confident this will come soon.

In the meantime, we're still passing bills from the opposite chamber through committee. Last week, I presented five Senate bills in House committees. For the first time in eight years as a legislator, I lost a bill in committee.

Senate Bill 1907 would authorize the Department of Public Safety to provide the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority vehicle registration information that is available through the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Telecommunication Systems network. The only information that would be given is the name and address of the registration associated with the license plate.

There was great pushback by tribal leaders that the Turnpike Authority should not have access to this information due to tribal sovereignty. It's only fair that everyone who uses our turnpikes should pay the same fee, whether the vehicle owner has a tribal license plate or any other plate. We have an inability to bill owners on whom we do not have registration information through the turnpike's new plate-pay system. Estimates show this is costing Oklahoma at least $11 million a year on tribal tags alone.

Plate-pay was put in place to save the lives of turnpike workers, and it was hoped this would also save the state some money going forward. Without better cooperation from our tribes in sharing their registration information, however, we're at a loss.

I was able to pass Senate Bill 1341, which would require the Oklahoma Water Resources Board to establish a phase-in schedule for measuring permitted water holders' usage. This bill has been greatly modified since it was introduced. It sets up a fair guideline between compliance and enforcement. The intent of the bill is for this to be fair for groundwater permit holders, but to protect this precious resource from those who might be tempted to overuse it.

I also passed Senate Bill 1914, which would require irrigators in a county with an irrigation district to participate in the district. This would allow all irrigators in the county access to federal funds flowing to our state and would allow equal access to technology to make irrigation more effective and efficient.

As always, if I can help in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me. You may reach me by email at [email protected], or phone me at 405-557-7339. God bless you and the State of Oklahoma.