Shelbie Frank, a junior at Canadian High School, paged in my Capitol office this week. We actually had three pages from Canadian High School, but two of them served in Rep. Jim Grego’s office.
Shelbie is the daughter of Leonard Frank. She’s on the Principal’s Honor Roll and serves on the Student Council. She’s also vice president of her age chapter in FFA. Her extracurricular activities include playing basketball, where she earned the Defensive Player of the Year title, playing volleyball and showing livestock, where she’s earned many grand and reserve awards. After high school, Shelbie wants to study business at Oklahoma State University. She hopes to one day own her own business. I believe she’ll be very successful.
Shelbie said she wanted to serve as a page to gain a greater understanding of how government actually works. I hope she walked away from the week feeling she’d accomplished her goal.
Pages that serve at the Capitol get to attend committee meetings and floor sessions. They meet peers from across the state and work together to write some of their own legislation for a mock session. It’s a good experience for the next generation who will soon be in leadership positions.
This week was busy with committee meetings. April 9 was the day for Senate bills to be advanced from initial House policy committees. Those who passed will now move to oversight committees. After this, work will pick up again on the House floor as we vote on Senate bills on third reading.
The House passed the general appropriations bill this week. It previously passed the Senate and now moves to the governor to be signed into law. This is the main state budget bill that outlines how funding will be appropriated to each state agency to provide services and programs for Oklahomans. Additional budget bills will be run soon that are specific to each agency.
We appropriated more than $100 million to fund $2,000 teacher pay raises for every step on the minimum teacher salary schedule. Teachers earn based on their level of education and years of experience. We also plan to spend more than $80 million on reading and math efforts, including the Strong Readers Act, which should help ensure students can read on grade level before they finish third grade.
This budget also contains a number of public safety efforts, including: $6.75 million to hold a Highway Patrol trooper academy and $1.8 million to help the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training update critical operations software. We also plan to increase the contribution to the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Retirement System, and we want to put additional money toward the District Attorney’s Council and raises for court workers. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation would receive $20.2 million for a forensic center and warehouse, and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs would receive $28 million for a new headquarters and warehouse.
We’re still saving about $3 billion, despite the fact that we’ve been able to cut taxes by about $1.6 billion in recent years.
No budget is perfect, but this is a good product, and it will serve the needs of Oklahomans.
As always, serving you is a privilege, not a guarantee. My family and I are proud to have this opportunity. If I can help you in my capacity as your representative, please do not hesitate to contact me at the Capitol. My office phone is (405) 557-7375, and my email is tim.turner@okhouse. gov.
