Appropriations and Budget

The Oklahoma House Appropriations and Budget Committee today approved legislation that would reform the state’s administrative rulemaking process—the system through which state agencies draft regulations to implement laws passed by the Legislature. House Bill 2728 , authored by Rep. Gerrid Kendrix, would establish the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act of 2025, modeled after similar federal legislation. "This is a crucial first step toward increasing transparency and oversight over an unelected bureaucracy that has incredible influence on how laws are implemented," said Kendrix, R-Altus. "These rules carry the force of law and largely take effect by default, which does not always serve the Oklahoma taxpayers well. This bill will ensure those elected by Oklahomans have greater oversight of the regulations impacting our state." If HB2728 is enacted, all proposed rules would be submitted with an economic impact statement, while proposed rules with a projected fiscal impact of at least $1 million over the first five years would require separate proactive legislative approval. The bill would also establish the Legislative Economic Analysis Unit (LEAU) within the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) to provide independent reviews of agencies' economic impact statements to ensure accuracy and completeness. This is modeled after many states that have put in place this third-party evaluation system for administrative rules, which has saved millions in cutting excess red tape and ensuring legislative intent is followed. "This simplifies the rulemaking process and ensures agency rules are given a third party thorough review before going into effect," said House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. HB2728 passed the House A&B Committee unanimously and will next be heard on the House floor. 

 The House Appropriations and Budget Committee voted today to approve a consent decree between the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and the plaintiffs who brought action against the state. The decree is a result of a 2023 lawsuit against ODMHSAS for violating the substantive due process rights of pretrial defendants in Oklahoma State Court proceedings who had been declared incompetent to stand trial and were awaiting competency restoration treatment. The Complaint alleges that the Department was allowing incompetent criminal defendants to endure unreasonable wait times beyond what is Constitutionally allowable for competency restoration treatment at the Oklahoma Forensic Center. The decree has been agreed to and negotiated by the Governor's office, the Office of the Attorney General and ODMHSAS. It now must be approved by the House and Senate to move forward. As part of this settlement, ODMHSAS is working with experts as well as community leadership to improve competency restoration services in the State of Oklahoma by: increased training of forensic health care professionals, reducing the number of individuals inaccurately declared incompetent, reducing the wait times to Constitutionally appropriate levels of competency restoration treatment, creating a Constitutionally appropriate, cutting edge in-jail restoration treatment program, and expanding the State’s resources including additional in-patient competency restoration beds. The agreed upon consent decree proposes a 16-month on-ramp for providing services. The state can ease into this plan under the decree, which proposes a strict five-year deadline for completion of services. "We would not choose to set policy through the courts in this way, but we feel like this consent decree is the best path forward so we can restore these competency services in a meaningful and timely way," said House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. "This will ensure those who committed crimes are held accountable and victim families are allowed to see justice served, all while we are providing Oklahomans accused of a crime needed mental health services." It is anticipated implementing the decree could cost between $26-45 million, depending on how long it takes for the state to come into compliance with the requirements of the decree. "We have been assured by the Department of Mental Health that they have a plan for implementation of this decree and are hopeful it will not take the full five years to fulfill the terms needed for the department to come into compliance," said House Appropriations and Budget Chairman Trey Caldwell, R-Faxon. "In a year with declining revenue, this is not a price tag anyone in the state wants to pay, but we know this needs to get fixed quickly and we are all committed to getting this done this session." The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services is statutorily obligated to provide competency evaluations and restoration treatment for persons found incompetent to stand trial in Oklahoma state court criminal proceedings. When an Oklahoma state court determines that a person is incompetent to stand trial because he or she is a "person requiring treatment", but is capable of achieving competency with treatment within a reasonable period of time, the state court must suspend the criminal proceedings and order the Department, or its designee, to provide treatment, therapy, or training calculated to allow the person to achieve competency. The Oklahoma Forensic Center is currently the only Department-operated hospital that provides secure, in-patient competency restoration treatment in Oklahoma. "This helps our state avoid the costs, uncertainties and risks of protracted litigation, likely saving the Department millions of dollars in legal fees and expenses if the case were litigated to a conclusion," said Caldwell. "This is the right thing to do and the House is committed to move this through quickly knowing time is of the essence." House Concurrent Resolution1004 passed the House Appropriations and Budget Committee unanimously and will next be considered on the House floor. -END-

The Oklahoma House of Representatives today added to its transparency portal a government efficiency survey intended to root out duplication of services, waste and inefficiencies in state government.  This initiative piggybacks on the federal effort to eliminate government waste through the newly-created federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). "We will work hand-in-hand with President-Elect Trump and our federal delegation on broader efforts to make government more efficient with DOGE," said House Speaker-Elect Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. "We want to ensure our state government is working as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. As lawmakers, we want the assistance of Oklahomans who have first-hand experience with duplicative and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars." Oklahomans can enter any examples they have experienced of state governmental waste or duplication into the easy-to-use portal, which will be submitted to House budget leaders for review to be utilized during legislative budget hearings and the crafting of the FY26 state budget.  "We know Oklahomans get frustrated every day with the inefficiency of government, and we need their help to root out the most egregious examples so we can eliminate unnecessary expenditures," said Rep. Trey Caldwell, R-Lawton, who will serve as House Appropriations Chairman for the 60th Legislature. "The more efficient we can become, the more we can invest in critical government services and pursue lowering the overall tax burden for all Oklahomans." Constituents can file government waste complaints online by entering some demographic information, the issue area their example encompasses, and details of waste or inefficiencies. "We are confident we will get examples of inefficiency that we likely would not have known about otherwise," said Rep. John Kane, R-Bartlesville, who will serve as Vice Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee this upcoming session. "Every January we have an opportunity to walk through budget requests with state agencies, and we will have the ability to ask about these constituent submissions directly in an effort to make government as efficient and effective as possible." The portal is live today, and Oklahomans can immediately start entering examples of waste they have already encountered or will see in the future. "We hope to capitalize on the momentum we are seeing on the federal level with the efforts of President Trump at DOGE, and the national priority they have set to reduce waste," Hilbert said. "Oklahoma has the opportunity to align with these efforts and lead at the state and local level as we seek best practices and frameworks for auditing and reducing waste in government spending." The Government Efficiency survey may be accessed via the homepage of the House website, okhouse.gov, similar to the House Budget HQ , which was launched in the 2024 session and updated regularly. All submitted agency FY26 budget requests have been updated and can be viewed in the portal.