STATE NEWS
OKLAHOMA CITY – Twelve state lawmakers – six from the House of Representatives and six from the state Senate – will head a committee that oversees a new office to evaluate agency budgets and programs.
The appointments were announced last week by legislatives leaders.
Known as LOFT, the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency, the office will be housed in the joint legislative agency, the Legislative Service Bureau.
House Speaker Charles McCall said LOFT will be similar to the federal Governmental Accountability Office at Congress.
“Taxpayers expect lawmakers to ensure their dollars are being spent efficiently, without waste and as they were intended,” McCall, R-Ada said in a media statement. “LOFT will give the Legislature an office that works for lawmakers, not the state agencies, and give us confidence that the information and analysis it provides our members will be unbiased, timely and accurate.”
He said the members chosen for the committee have shown the temperament and willingness to “roll up their sleeves and do the hard work that digging through agency and complex agency programs requires.”
Legislative leaders said the office would hire financial examiners who would routinely audit agency budgets and spending and examine the effectiveness of agency programs and services.
In the past, the legislature has turned to outside groups and companies for a review of certain programs or policies. Often, those reviews are expensive, costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The House co-chair of the committee, Rep. Kevin Wallace, R-Wellstone, said lawmakers often have difficulty getting accurate information from agencies. “There have been times when some agencies provided different information to the House and Senate,” Wallace said.
“As lawmakers, we have to get useful information quickly in order to make good budgeting decisions on behalf of the Oklahomans that sent us here,” he said.
A companion piece of legislation, Senate Bill 1, requires state agencies boards and commissions to comply with LOFT requestsfor records, documents and budgets and to make personnel. The agency will also have subpoena and investigative authority, lawmakers said.
Senate Pro Tempore, Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said the new stands out as a huge policy win for Oklahoma.
“LOFT will increase accountability and transparency of the spending of Oklahomans’ hard-earned tax dollars by providing the public and lawmakers with objective, independent data on agency spending and program performance,” Treat said.
Legislators appointed to the committee include House members: Rep. Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, Co-Vice Chair, Rep. Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, Rep. Mike Osburn, R-Edmond,
Rep. Jeff Boatman, R-Tulsa, Rep. Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City and Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D-Tulsa.
Senators appointed to the committee include: Appropriations Committee Chairman Senator Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, as co-chair. Senator Kim David, R-Porter, Senator Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee, Senator Frank Simpson, R-Springer, Senator Chuck Hall, R-Guthrie, Senator Michael Brooks, D-Oklahoma City and Senator Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City.