Senators Undermining Senate’s Transparency Plan
State Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat’s push for budget transparency is being undermined by the senators he leads.
Monday’s First Watch was about the Senate General Government Committee sliding one past the public by hearing and passing Senate Bill 1836, which wasn’t on the agenda 24 hours before the meeting as required.
For a second act, the Senate Appropriations Public Safety and Judiciary Subcommittee on Tuesday slid a whole meeting past the public by starting early and adjourning four minutes before the meeting was supposed to start.
That makes it hard for the public to attend unless they travel by TARDIS.
Senate Rule 7.7A says, “Subject to such exceptions as are provided hereinafter, committees of the Senate shall comply with provisions of the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act.”
The Open Meeting Act requires public bodies to post notice of the time and place of meetings at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. That makes it possible for the public to know when and where to show up if they’re interested in the public business to be discussed and acted upon.
Senate Rule 7.7A says: “A copy of all notices required by said Act shall be provided to the Chief Operating Officer, who shall designate the appropriate place for such notices to be posted. The Chief Operating Officer shall cause the notice to be posted on the Senate web site and shall take such other actions as may be deemed appropriate to provide adequate notice to the public.” (Emphasis added).
Tuesday’s subcommittee meeting, according to the website, was set to begin at 4 p.m. The hard copy of the agenda, which was uploaded to the web page that carried the video feed of the proceedings and was presumably posted in accordance with the rules, said the meeting would begin at “04:00 PM or AFTER PM SESSION.”
One might reasonably assume that a 4 p.m. Senate subcommittee meeting would not start while the Senate was in session on the Floor, so an allowance to start a little late in case the Floor session ran long makes sense.
But to interpret that to mean the subcommittee would start its meeting whenever the Floor session ended would make it impossible to give adequate notice to the public, whose only option then would be to show up at the Capitol at 1:30 p.m., when the Floor session was due to start, and hang around just in case it ended early.
Members of the public who wanted to attend that subcommittee meeting rightly arrived by 4 p.m. only to discover an empty room as the meeting was called to order at 3:22 p.m. and adjourned at 3:56 p.m.
Treat said before the session began that his new budget process would feature weekly budget discussions held publicly on Wednesdays and a full budget proposal passed as a resolution from the Senate to the House.
“This will allow everyone to see how the budget is discussed and how it is done in the open,” Treat said. “My goal with this is to provide more transparency and more accountability for agencies who are funded through taxpayer dollars.”
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Our oldest known living person in Oklahoma is Fannie Jones of Oklahoma City, who was born on August 21, 1913.
Ciao for now,
Ted Streuli
Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch
tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org
