Fallin’s three executive orders seek efficiency in #oklaed, higher ed, ‘swag’

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

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Gov. Mary Fallin issued three executive orders this afternoon aimed at promoting the efficient use of state funds and said she will provide a date next week for a second special session.

The executive orders (embedded below) follow Fallin’s veto of a majority of HB 1019 on Friday night, hours after the House and Senate had each adjourned sine die. The bill was the Legislature’s revised general appropriations bill, and the portions she left in place provided funding for the beleaguered health care agencies that had been the focus of the year’s first special session.

The three executive orders Fallin announced Tuesday are:

Executive order 2017-37 that limits “nonessential items to be provided to persons or legal entities including, but not limited to, items of tangible personal property for purposes of promoting or advertising the name of the state government entity or its missions, duties or functions, such as magnets, buttons, bumper stickers, ribbons, awards, prizes, trophies, stationary, writing implements, legal pad holders, book bags or similar items.” The order sets a $10 million limit on such items per fiscal year, beginning July 1, 2019.
Executive order 2017-38 directs the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to “develop a plan to be presented to the governor and Legislature for the administrative consolidation of universities, colleges, centers and branch campuses by December of 2018.” It also directs “the chancellor and State Regents of Higher Education to execute the plan by December of 2019.”
Executive order 2017-39 directs “the State Board of Education, with the assistance of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, shall compile a list of every public school district that spends less than 60 percent of their budget on instructional expenditures.” It also directs recommendations and a plan for school consolidation or annexation of those schools.

The “nonessential items” order follows the stalling of a bill in special session that would have limited agency “swag” items.