Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Oklahoma newspapers:
The Oklahoman. March 31, 2019.
- Oklahoma children can gain from prison reform
We write frequently about how Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate impacts the prison system - its aging and badly overcrowded buildings, its outnumbered correctional officers - and on the growing financial toll to the state fisc. Its impact on Oklahoma families shouldn’t be forgotten.
When a man or woman is sent to prison, the effect ripples through the offender’s family, be it their mother, father, spouse or, most importantly, their children.
A state task force created to identify the needs of kids with a parent in prison reported in 2017 that about 4,600 minor children have a mother in state prison on any given day. Susan Sharp, a former University of Oklahoma sociology professor who has studied Oklahoma’s female incarceration rate for more than two decades, has noted that because locked-up mothers are about three times as likely as incarcerated fathers to have been the only parent in a household, “children are often left without parents.”
Thus, it’s safe to conclude that the state’s prison rate no doubt contributes to Oklahoma’s large foster care caseload, which triggers a whole other set of issues.
A 2016 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that in Oklahoma, roughly one in 10 children - about 96,000 boys and girls - has had a parent in jail or prison at some point.
That experience is “of the same magnitude as abuse, domestic violence and divorce, with a potentially lasting negative impact on a child’s well-being,” the study said. The separation from a parent, tied to a lack of support elsewhere, “can increase children’s mental health issues . and hamper educational achievement.”
Having a parent in prison is among the “adverse childhood experiences” that burden so many Oklahoma students. According to the state Department of Education, Oklahoma leads the nation in ACEs, which include other traumatic events such as divorce and exposure to violence. No wonder state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister is urging lawmakers to approve a package of criminal justice reform bills that deal with nonviolent inmates.
The most publicized of those measures is House Bill 1269 by Reps. Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, and Jason Dunnington, D-Oklahoma City. The bill, which made it through the House easily, would make retroactive State Question 780, which voters approved in 2016. SQ 780 reclassified certain low-level drug and property crimes as misdemeanors instead of felonies; the sentences of about 1,050 nonviolent inmates would potentially be affected if it were made retroactive.
David Blatt, outgoing executive director of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, notes that “there is no left-right divide” on criminal justice reform. Proponents of this package of bills include liberal-leaning groups like his organization and the ACLU, and conservative groups such as Right on Crime and Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs Impact.
Here’s hoping that lawmakers, in weighing these bills, will consider the significant toll our traditional approach to corrections is taking on families, especially children.
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Muskogee Phoenix. March 31, 2019.
- Sleight of hand at Capitol
When a bill with five lines of vague text emerges from committee as a four-page bill that passes quickly from one chamber of the Legislature to the other and back again, one might think there is something slippery happening.
It becomes increasingly suspicious when the bill would place strict limits on non-economic damages a person harmed by a nuisance could collect and rob jurors and judges of their discretion to assess damages based upon actual evidence.
House Bill 2373 is such a bill. It was introduced and sent to the House Rules Committee with language indicating little more than “it may be cited as the ’Oklahoma Tort Reform Act.’” It came out of committee with a new author and new language that would cap non-economic damages for nuisance claims arising from agricultural activities on farm or ranch land and require them to be assessed separately from all other damages.
Supporters fear lawsuits that have been filed in other states threaten Oklahoma’s meat producers. They also expressed concern about protecting the integrators - companies that supply and buy the producers’ stock - against liability so they won’t leave the state and do business elsewhere.
State law already provides protections for agricultural activities, which are presumed not to be a nuisance when they operate in accordance with local, state and federal laws. There is no reason to take away from fact finders in courtrooms the ability to assess each case based upon facts presented rather than an edict based on no evidence at all.
While measures need to be in place to safeguard against frivolous claims, it is wrong to impose further restrictions on jurors and those who might be harmed by actors who act without disregard to others. If HB 2373 was such a good bill, there would be no need to disguise it early in the session, and then rush it through the process when observers might be distracted.
This bill deserves closer scrutiny and more deliberation before it is allowed to advance any further.
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Tulsa World. April 2, 2019.
- Give state pension retirees a break, but don’t break the pension funds
Retirees covered by state pension plans have been pushing legislators for a cost-of-living raise.
It’s certainly justified.
It has been more than 11 years since state-pension retirees, including teachers, police officers and firefighters, received a pension increase. The cost of living has gone up in that period, and it’s time to give the retirees a chance to catch up.
Unfortunately, the narrative has been spread that the state can raise the pay to its retirees at no cost - that there’s plenty of money in the state pension funds to pay for a raise without additional appropriations.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The state’s pension systems are in relatively sound shape - relative to the very unsound shape they were in when the Legislature was in the habit of taking money out and building up a dangerously high unfunded pension fund liability.
Before the state got its pension fund appetites under control, the Oklahoma Teacher Retirement System had an unfunded liability of 49%, putting the retirements of future generations of teachers and the state’s bond rating at risk.
Years of austerity - including all those years without a raise - have improved the teachers pension unfunded liability to 70%, but that still represented a $6.1 billion hole.
Overall, state pension funds have a $7.8 billion unfunded liability.
The pension funds for judges, police and state employees are all at or near 100% funding, but that doesn’t mean the state can abandon its legal and fiduciary responsibilities.
State law prohibits pension increases that aren’t matched with funding revenue and mandates a two-year study process. There are those who have suggested wiring around those requirements and the devil take the hindmost.
Give state pensioners the raise they deserve, but follow the law, which means figuring out the real costs and paying for it.
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