We have less than two months until the 2024 legislative session gets underway. Friday, December 8 was the deadline to have our bill requests in, which are the issues we’d like to have researched — not all of these will end up getting filed due to duplication or various other reasons but it’s an important starting point. We have until mid-January to decide if we want to file them.
More than 70 bills have already been filed, including a few of mine. One creates a penalty for willfully or recklessly submitting a false complaint against a childcare facility and the other increases the penalty for illegally carrying a firearm on school property. I’ll go over these more in the coming weeks.
Besides bills, we’re also working on the budget. This is a process that starts in the summer. This past week, budget hearings with the largest agencies began. The Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government and Transportation heard from several of their agencies last week. The Education Appropriations Subcommittee will have their first meetings this Thursday and the subcommittee for Natural Resources will meet the following week. This is a very busy time in the legislative process. You can find the meeting schedules and agendas on the Senate website and meetings are also streamed live.
The Senate recently introduced a new budgeting process that will increase transparency and efficiency. There are earlier deadlines to meet, including the appropriations subcommittees presenting their individual budgets to the full Appropriations Committee in February or March, which typically doesn’t happen until late April. The full committee will then create a budget proposal in March off those smaller budgets and put it into a Senate resolution that will be voted on by the full body.
Once that is approved, our appropriations chair and vice chair will begin negotiations with their House counterparts. Overall, this should help us reach a budget agreement earlier in session, so we’re not racing the clock in the final days leading up to our constitutionally required adjournment date.
This past week, I joined some of my fellow senators to meet with the Executive Vice President of Economic Development for the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber Jeff Seymour for an overview of the state’s economic development efforts. We’re working so hard to support our current businesses, attract new industries and empower our students and employees to meet the needs of an ever-changing workforce. Economic development is something that requires unique attention at the local, regional, and state level — our responsibilities are different but it’s also critical that we have full collaboration and openness across all the levels to be truly successful. This will be one of our main focuses this session.
If you have any questions or concerns on legislative matters, please contact me at the Capitol by writing to Senator Jessica Garvin, State Capitol, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd. Room 237, Oklahoma City, OK, 73105, emailing [email protected] or calling 405-521-5522.
