The Legislature last week passed its third-reading deadline. This is the date by which all bills and resolutions have to be passed out of their chamber of origin to stay alive this session. Of course, bills authored by the speaker of the House can still be advanced as can bills brought by the Appropriations & Budget chair.

The House passed 390 bills and resolutions by the deadline, from the starting number of 1,754. The Senate passed 429 bills to the House out of 877 originally filed. The final number of measures signed into law each year traditionally averages out to about 400.

Now that this deadline is passed, the House will assign Senate bills to House committees to be considered. Once bills pass committee, they are eligible to be heard on the House floor. The same process will happen to House bills in the Senate.

 We’ve passed several pieces of major legislation through both chambers of the Legislature this year that already have been signed into law by the governor. These include five bills that will give the governor the ability to hire agency directors at five of the state’s largest appropriated state agencies. The bills also will help rebalance the boards of these agencies by giving the governor the ability to appoint five members and the Legislature the ability to appoint four – two from the House and two from the Senate.

The governor already has appointed his allotted five members to the Health Care Authority Board, five members of the Board of Juvenile Affairs and five members of the ODMHSAS board.

He could complete his appointments for the ODOT and DOC boards as soon as this week. Legislative appointees should soon follow.

 These boards will still have oversight of these agencies and still have to meet all Open Records and Open Meetings Act requirements, but the agencies will now have to answer to the state’s chief executive and elected lawmakers instead of just to unelected boards.

 Voters long have told elected officials they want a better accounting of the spending of taxpayer dollars. This will accomplish that.

Also on the accountability side, the House passed a bill to create the Office of Government Accountability to serve both the House and Senate. This office would hire 15 financial experts to delve into agency budgets, spending and programs to also better help us track agency spending.

 The House also passed a number of bills this session that will benefit students, teachers and local public schools. These include a $1,200 teacher pay raise to help get our teacher pay to the highest in the region; my bill that will require professional development for teachers to better recognize and help students struggling with dyslexia; a bill that will give teachers a $1,000 tax credit for purchasing classroom supplies or toward the renewal of their teaching certificates; a bill that will allow National Board Certified Teachers to apply for a $1,000 grant to pay for the renewal of their certification; a bill that will allow schools to pay retired teachers more than is currently allowed to come back into the classroom and one that will allow districts to pay student teachers; and  a bill that will give teachers more money if they opt for “in lieu of” payments instead of taking the flexible health care benefit if they are otherwise covered, plus many more.

The House also is still committed to adding more funding to our classrooms, to mental health funding, and restoring the $30 million dollars to the County Improvements for Roads and Bridges (CIRB) fund. Budget negations continue and I will keep you all posted on that in future columns.

 As always, I would love to hear from you about these or any other issues. I can be reached at (405) 557-7407 or mike.sanders@okhouse.gov.