Newest lawmakers offer proposals for pay levels, schools
The Oklahoma Capitol’s newest lawmakers didn’t hesitate to offer legislation this year, with bill topics ranging from schools to criminal justice.
The 2018 legislative session starts Monday and will continue through May. The first round of committee hearings will take place over the next few weeks as details of the proposals are hammered out during the legislative process.
State Sen. Michael Brooks, D-Oklahoma City, will serve his first full legislative session after being chosen in a special election last year. He was one of several lawmakers to file a bill that would raise teachers’ minimum salary level.
Senate Bill 1363 would set the salary for first-year teachers at $37,600, which is $6,000 above the current level. Teacher pay has been a hot topic at the Capitol for years, but no proposal has yet made it to Gov. Mary Fallin’s desk, despite repeated calls from the governor to enact a raise.
Brooks also focused on school funding with Senate Joint Resolution 69. The proposed ballot question would let Oklahomans vote on whether to link legislator pay to the largely ignored school funding deadline. State law commands the Legislature to pass a school funding bill by April 1. If Brooks’ proposal is adopted and future deadlines pass without action from the House and Senate, the Oklahoma Board of Legislative Compensation can meet to consider lawmaker salary.
In a controversial move last year, the citizen-run board lowered legislator salaries in what was seen as a punishment for the state’s budget woes.
Brooks is just one of a handful of state legislators elevated to public office in special elections after the 2016 campaign season. Karen Gaddis, a new Democratic House member from Tulsa, filed a bill that would eliminate the school grading system. She is a retired teacher.
The A-through-F scale assigns grades to schools based on their progress. It was designed to
hold schools accountable for poor student grades, graduation rates, English language proficiency and other indicators. The recently revised system has been criticized for simplifying the often complex and nuanced problems that a school district might face.
Gaddis also turned in bills that would strengthen the penalty for someone convicted multiple times of impersonating police and prohibit trains from blocking roadway traffic for more than 10 minutes.
State Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, is also an educator but had to quit his public school job after his election in September. He wants to raise the salary for educators with National Board certification and require private schools receiving state funds to publish a special education annual report.
Rosecrants also filed a bill that would legalize the production of industrial hemp. He shares the idea withthree other lawmakers who have legislation that could eventually open the door to the hemp business in Oklahoma.
State Rep. Zack Taylor, the first lawmaker elected in last year’s round of special elections, has targeted the conflict between operators of horizontal and vertical wells.
Vertical well owners have criticized some drillers of the newer, more profitable horizontal operations of damaging their boreholes and supply of oil and gas.
The bill introduced by Taylor, R-Seminole, offers a detailed reform for assessing damages.
Taylor also filed legislation that would allow the Oklahoma attorney general to determine if a legislator engages in misconduct. If so, that lawmaker’s campaign fund could be forfeited.