OPEA staff spent the past weekend performing the arduous task of combing through more than 2,323 bills filed by state House and Senate members. The bills filed ahead of the January 15th deadline will keep the staff’s attention for several days.
“The House filed 1,269 new bills with the Senate filing only 1,054 new bills,” said OPEA Deputy Director Scott Barger. “OPEA staff will spend a considerable amount of time reading and analyzing these bills for possible impact on state employees.”
Already identified were OPEA’s pay raise bills. Senate Bill 898 by Senator Jonathan Nichols, R-Norman, Senate Bill 1096 by Senator Jim Reynolds, R-Del City and House Bill 2248 by Representative Randy Terrill were filed by the 5 pm deadline and authorize an across-the-board pay raise for state employees.
“We have had a lot of bi-partisan interest in state employee issues this session,” said Barger. “Some good, some not so good. We have several legislators who have filed pay raise bills on behalf of state employees such as Representative Wallace Collins, (D-Norman) and Neil Brannon, (D-Poteau).”
OPEA staff has posted a tracking list on the OPEA website of the OPEA bills that have been identified.
OPEA will continue to update as bills are identified.
