In the late hours of what was functionally its final day of regular session, the Oklahoma Legislature voted in supermajorities to remove Allie Friesen as commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. The inherently tense situation escalated past the point of no return when Gov. Kevin Stitt issued a statement targeting the wife of a senator — leading some legislators to question if the governor was any more fit to lead than Friesen.
Friesen was removed by the passage of Senate Concurrent Resolution 12, authored by Sen. Paul Rosino (R-OKC) and House Majority Floor Leader Josh West (R-Grove), who both served on the special committee that investigated ODMHSAS’ finances as the agency experienced an approximately $30 million shortfall.
In the Senate, the resolution’s consideration became as gnarly as the agency’s fiscal situation when Stitt and Sen. Shane Jett (R-Shawnee) openly questioned whether Rosino’s motivation to oust Friesen was to protect his wife, who is a part-time employee at the agency. The insinuation sparked outcry in the Senate, and it caused two House leaders to call Stitt’s comments unbecoming of a governor.
“Would you agree with me in my opinion that someone that would do such a thing is unfit to lead any particular group of constituents, much less the great state of Oklahoma?” asked House Speaker Pro Tempore Anthony Moore (R-Clinton) during questioning on the resolution.
West, presenting on the House floor, answered affirmatively.
“I do share part of that concern, yes,” he said.
Stitt appointed Friesen to her post in January 2024 and defended her to the bitter end, releasing a statement Thursday evening that incensed most members of the Senate by bringing Rosino’s wife into the political fray — a violation of the unwritten rule that family members are “off limits.” (Stitt has experienced that affront with politicization of his own family before.)
“From the start, this was nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt,” Stitt said in his statement. “I tasked Allie Friesen with bringing accountability and transparency to the agency. She disturbed the status quo and questioned long held practices at the agency. An agency rife with sweetheart deals and criminal elements was disrupted, and now, elected officials are quickly working to set the apple cart right for those who seek to get rich off of Oklahoma taxpayers. Josh West and Paul Rosino need to first answer what they stand to gain from Allie Friesen being removed. What are they trying to keep covered up? What conflicts of interest are they trying to hide? Is Sen. Rosino trying to help his wife avoid responsibility for her role in the finance department there? Oklahomans deserve answers.”
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Rosino stalked the Capitol halls visibly angry after Stitt’s statement went public, and the tension boiled over when proceedings began on SCR 12.
Things turned ugly fast on the Senate floor when Jett asked Rosino directly about Stitt’s insinuation and asked a follow up wondering if someone else besides Rosino would be more appropriate to carry the resolution. Rosino confirmed his wife is a part-time employee of the agency, but he said he acted in his role as chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, not on behalf of his wife. Jett’s questions provoked a strong reaction from other senators, earning groans and a cry of, “Oh my God,” on the floor.
“I will cut your throat to protect my district, but there are rules. We leave family out of it,” said Sen. Casey Murdock (R-Felt). “I guarantee you my family has went without me more they should have. I leave on Sunday, I don’t get home until Friday afternoon. Our families sacrifice, would you believe? And would you believe that I believe that any issue we fight tooth and nail on this floor, we need to leave family out of it? That is crossing the outline.”
In debate, Jett continued to irritate Murdock, suggesting members of the Senate had taken advantage of the proceeding item — an override vote that remained open for over five hours — to earn political favors, and that they might do the same thing again. Like Stitt, Jett credited Friesen for shaking up a corrupt agency.
“What we have here is political theater. Retribution. We have someone who has come in and ruffled feathers, began asking hard questions from an entrenched state agency who has already removed some of the leadership for embezzlement,” Jett said.
Other senators joined Murdock’s rebuke of Jett’s floor remark. Sen. Christi Gillespie (R-Broken Arrow) said hearing criticism of a spouse brought tears to her eyes, Sen. Grant Green (R-Wellston) said he was disappointed to be a senator, and Sen. Aaron Reinhardt (R-Jenks) criticized Stitt’s statement that had spurred the discussion of Rosino’s spouse in the first place.
“I’m sorry, but the fact that it was put out in the statement, the fact that we’re talking about this is disturbing. And the fact that it was brought up again on this floor is disgusting,” Reinhardt said.
Despite debate being more so about the morality of attacking a political opponent’s family member than the actual item at hand, Senate Floor Leader Julie Daniels (R-Bartlesville) brought it back to Friesen during debate.
“I wish to point out to the public and the media that this resolution was pretty unanimously supported earlier in the day, before I’m afraid it got conflated with the issue that was on the board for so many hours, and then the very unfortunate statement made, perhaps in reaction to what happened with the previous item,” Daniels said. “If she had inherited a very well-run agency with no problems, (she) could have been a star, but she’s been presented with a situation that has been at the least daunting, and, in my view, now overwhelming and beyond her capabilities as a manager. It is not personal for me, it is that I have an obligation to the taxpayers to make sure this agency can deliver the services with the money that they provide to the government that we appropriate.”
The Senate ultimately voted 43-1 to dismiss Friesen. Jett was the lone “No” vote. In the ensuing vote in the House, representatives voted 81-5 for Friesen’s dismissal.
Speaking under a point of personal privilege, Rosino thanked his colleagues for defending his wife against a “vicious and callous attack on one of the nicest, most Christian women I’ve ever known.”
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Stitt: ‘They’re pushing their frustration out on the wrong person’
Friesen inherited a litany of problems at the agency, including delays in competency restoration services so severe they ultimately resulted in a lawsuit settlement and consent decree. In late February, Friesen’s team informed legislative leaders and the governor that it had identified a history of bad budgetary practices that resulted in a budget shortfall to the tune of at least $27.4 million, which lawmakers appropriated to avoid payroll defaults through the end of Fiscal Year 2025 on June 30. Still, Friesen made her own missteps with how the crisis has been handled, and her abbreviated 15-month stint took on a pervasive narrative that her lack of prior government experience left her simply not qualified for such a position.
Stemming from a multi-year practice of paying last year’s Medicaid reimbursements with next year’s appropriations, the budget shortfall’s estimate swung wildly over the two months since Friesen announced it — from $63 million to $6.2 million before ultimately being pegged at about $27.4 million. The issue spurred the Oklahoma House to form a special investigative committee for examination of ODMHSAS’ finances.
The ensuing hearings left legislators openly frustrated with Friesen and Skip Leonard, the interim CFO she had appointed. Neither Friesen nor Leonard seemed particularly capable of answering specific questions about the agency’s finances. Other agencies and individuals, including the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency, State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd, state CFO Aaron Morris and Stitt-appointed contractor and CPA David Greenwell, stepped in to come up with the $27.4 million estimate for how much money the agency needed in supplemental appropriations to get through the rest of the fiscal year.
Byrd released a preliminary and surface-level audit that criticized ODMHSAS’ leadership along with its budgeting practices. She reported that some employees felt discouraged from cooperating in the investigation, including through the use of non-disclosure agreements, which lawmakers also criticized.
Byrd reported that Friesen’s leadership team had fallen short by:
- “Not attending meetings or signing documents;
- Employing armed guards, locking down the administrative floor, and even threatening employees in meetings;
- Failing to inform employees of internal events that the employees then learn about through the media; and
- Constantly changing the supervisory structure, leading to employees being unaware who their supervisor is and having to research this information online.”
Friesen’s removal required a two-thirds vote from both the House and Senate as authorized by Title 43a, Section 2-101. Leonard, her interim CFO, is also no longer serving in that role at the agency after his contract expired in early May. Like Friesen, Leonard previously worked at INTEGRIS Health, where Friesen was the director of the behavioral health clinical program. Neither had prior experience in state government, and Leonard was not a CPA, a listed requirement on ODMHSAS’ full-time CFO job posting. (The posting has recently been removed from the state’s official job portal.) Other former INTEGRIS employees were also hired in leadership roles, including Kim Corcoran, deputy commissioner of safety and quality, and Damon Blakenbaker, senior director of workplace violence and behavioral threat assessment.
During the second investigative committee meeting, Rep. Chris Kannady (R-OKC) accused Blakenbaker of threatening employees who did not sign NDAs.
“There is an indication that he called a meeting and threatened the employees, saying that if they did not sign the NDAs, or violated the NDAs, he would go in ‘full cop mode,'” Kannady said.
Leonard and Christina Green, ODMHSAS general counsel, testified they had no knowledge of such a meeting.
Stitt supported Friesen publicly throughout the investigative committee, saying she was simply exposing past wrongdoing at the agency.
“You’re seeing the bureaucracy kick and scream as she is actually putting a spotlight on this stuff,” Stitt said in April. “I tell people, ‘Let’s shine a light on some of these dollars, let’s see where all of the mice scatter to,’ and that’s what you’re seeing right now. The rats are running, and they’re screaming.”
On Thursday, before his incendiary comments about Rosino, Stitt doubled down, casting doubt instead on the nonprofits the agency contracts with to provide services.
“I know [legislators are] frustrated, but I think they’re pushing their frustration out on the wrong person. You’re talking about all these different vendors out here, these nonprofits that are making millions and millions of dollars off of taxpayers, and when we’re holding them accountable, and we’re asking questions on, why does the CEO make over a million dollars a year at a nonprofit, they’re squealing like stuck pigs,” he said. “We’re digging into their contracts, we’re changing, we’re holding people accountable. And these nonprofit — these ‘nonprofits’ — are just squealing. And what do they do? They go hire lobbyists, and they start spinning this building and getting everybody worked up.”
Attorney General Gentner Drummond, however — who already had a fraught relationship with Friesen after she fired him as her counsel while the consent decree was being drafted — has been outright calling for Friesen’s termination since May 5. On May 21, he tweeted Friesen had three recent tax liens placed on her by the Oklahoma Tax Commission for unpaid taxes. Friesen said in an email to employees that her taxes has been paid in full “long ago.”
“What is an issue — and one I cannot ignore — is the blatant violation of character, the disturbing misuse of public office, and this sustained campaign of political bullying I have endured from the attorney general of our state,” Friesen wrote in the email obtained by NonDoc.
In a May 5 hearing, Friesen warned removing her from office would not solve the agency’s issues.
“I want to be unequivocally clear that this administration has never shied away from any challenge, and we don’t plan to anytime soon,” Friesen said. “These truths and facts of the matter are inconvenient, and I realize (they) are uncomfortable. If the decision is made from some party — the executive branch, the legislative branch, the general public — (that) wants to push me out, that’s fine, but there’s going to be somebody else sitting in this chair next year, and the funding gap will have doubled.”
Watch Rosino’s point of personal privilege speech
