Corporation Commissioner sees agency review’s benefit

An Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner says a think tank’s recently concluded examination of the agency’s performance includes recommendations worth considering. Commissioner Todd Hiett, who served on a governor’s task force that spent a year working with the National Academy of Public Administration on the review, said Tuesday it makes some points “I think we can use as tools to improve our functionality, going forward. “There are some things we could do to improve.” The Corporation Commission, established by Oklahoma’s constitution in 1907, has three statewide elected members who serve staggered, six-year terms. It regulates a wide swath of businesses, including oil and gas, telecommunications, electric and gas utilities, trucking, railroad crossings — and cotton gins. In recent years, it also has regulated induced seismicity linked to oil and gas activity. Academy representatives told the task force the agency’s scope of responsibilities is broader than those of any other like organization it found, and that they believed the commission does a good job, given the resources it has. Its report, meanwhile, recommends the agency develop and use inclusive strategic planning and develop mission and goals-oriented performance and staff management systems. It includes about two dozen specific recommendations aimed at improving the agency, in part addressing past criticisms by regulated electric utilities and oil and natural gas producers the agency sometimes takes too long to consider their issues. Utilities, for example, have worried about how long it takes the commission to decide rate cases. Under current law, the commission has 180 days to work through a case before the utility is allowed to set an interim rate while a case remains pending. The academy recommends Oklahoma change its state law to give the commission 250 days to decide future cases, a move Hiett said he supports because of the reams of facts and financial data that need considered. The national average, he added, is 259 days. “I think those cases should move as quickly as possible, but we have to be given the appropriate time for vetting when you have 700,000 customers that are depending on you to be sure their rates are fair and reasonable,” he said. As for handling oil and gas issues, Hiett noted the academy’s report observed the agency’s oil and gas division isn’t adequately funded to perform its mission. The division makes up 34 percent of the agency’s overall budget, but only collects about 12 percent of fee revenue the agency collects, he said.

Hiett said lobbying the Legislature to recapture oil and gas excise tax revenue that used to support the agency but now goes into the state’s general revenue fund makes sense.

“That way, we could properly staff that division to make sure we have proper regulation and pollution control, while serving the industry more effectively,” he said.

The academy also recommends the commission work closely with its internet services provider, the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services, to accelerate

upgrades to systems used by the commission to store and process documents, transcripts, licenses and other associated data it relies upon to conduct its business.

While Hiett said the commission’s work with the office the past 18 months has made “major strides,” he added, “we still have a long way to go.”

Hiett said he believes the commission could more cost-effectively upgrade the systems it uses by relying upon in-house staff.

As for moving responsibilities out of the commission to another agency, the academy stated such a move should be evaluated based upon whether or not it would benefit a served industry or constituency

and would save money.

“That is pretty common sense and straightforward,” Hiett said, discussing the issue in the context of a recent legislative effort to move the agency’s trucking regulatory division to the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.

He said he also supports the academy’s recommendation to change Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act to make it easier for commissioners to handle the agency’s day-today business by exempting commissioners from act requirements when they need to hear discussions related to internal management issues or to get issue briefs related to upcoming cases they will

hear, debate and decide.

Hiett stressed it will be up to commissioners as a group to decide what academy recommendations, if any, are made priorities with Oklahoma’s Legislature during the coming session.

Generally, he observed the study was a “very expensive process,” costing Oklahoma more than $350,000, not including the time it took the commission’s staff to work with the academy to handle its various inquiries. Still, he said the process provided value.

“I think there are some things in it that we can use to take some steps forward,” he said. “That is the approach we ought to take.”