Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman: "We've made a commitment to go through the process to look at our total compensation package, comparing ours to other states and the private sector ... and make sure we can retain some of the good state employees we have," he told the Tulsa Regional Chamber during the final legislative briefing breakfast of the year
Issues involving public employees are the early favorite to lead next year's legislative agenda, Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, said Friday.
Speaking to the Tulsa Regional Chamber's final legislative briefing breakfast of the year, he said state pensions and overall state-employee compensation reform appear to be the most pressing work left unfinished from the 2013 session that ended May 24.
"The governor is very anxious to sit down and talk to the Legislature about where we go with our pension system," Bingman said.
Oklahoma has seven public pension systems with unfunded liabilities totaling $11 billion. Gov. Mary Fallin vetoed this year's most significant piece of pension reform, which would have authorized a defined contribution option for one of the two largest systems, saying it did not go far enough.
Bingman said pension reform will be part of an overall evaluation of state-worker compensation sought by Fallin. She cited that ongoing evaluation in her opposition to legislative initiatives to raise the pay of some state employees, including Highway Patrol troopers and corrections officers.
State employees have not had a general cost-of-living raise in six years.
"We've made a commitment to go through the process to look at our total compensation package, comparing ours to other states and the private sector ... and make sure we can retain some of the good state employees we have," Bingman said.
Also in the works is an examination of the state merit protection system, which some think has become too cumbersome.
Bingman said major accomplishments of the session that just ended include workers compensation reform, additional funding for common and higher education, and $150 million for repairs to the Capitol and other state buildings.
He acknowledged that common education did not get as much as some wanted - the additional appropriation will be partially and perhaps entirely offset by a loss of ad valorem revenue - but said: "We're doing the best that we can. I think $91 million for common ed is a step in the right direction."
Area legislators attending the breakfast indicated various degrees of satisfaction with the session.
Several mentioned funding boosts for the Oklahoma State University Medical Center and the OU Wayman Tisdale Specialty Health Clinic, both in Tulsa, as important accomplishments.
Rep. Eric Proctor, D-Tulsa, said that "Tulsa is not that well-liked" in the Legislature but that the area delegation stuck together well on regional issues regardless of party.
Rep. Glen Mulready, R-Tulsa, said he was "extremely disappointed we were unable to come to an agreement to save Insure Oklahoma," a program that subsidizes private health insurance for low-income workers and small businesses.
Rep. Wade Rousselot, D-Wagoner, criticized a "lack of business sense, especially in the House," over the financing of the Capitol improvements. He said the state should have taken advantage of low interest rates to borrow the money instead of taking it from general revenue.
Doing so, he said, would not have overextended the state's low debt ratio and would have allowed pay raises for Department of Public Safety employees and the hiring of more prison guards.
With corrections staffing far below authorized levels, Rousselot said he fears prison violence this summer.
Randy Krehbiel 918-581-8365
randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Senate leader says public-employee issues loom
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