Tulsa County Ready to Present Legislative Agenda

As the state legislature convenes on Feb. 3, Tulsa County will be ready to present our legislative agenda for 2020. Included in our slate of legislative requests are three (3) bills which will address important public safety and government efficiency issues.

Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery.
Oklahoma ranks fifth in the nation for the most federally declared natural disasters. The number of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires each year puts all of Oklahoma at high risk for the destruction of property and loss of life.
While we can’t control when and where natural disasters will strike, we can do much more to mitigate the impacts of these disasters and to be better prepared for the recovery that follows.
With the support of Representative Lonnie Sims and Senator Dave Rader, we will introduce the Hazard Mitigation Assessment District Act. It would allow county voters to decide if they want to fund a hazard mitigation and disaster recovery fund via a dedicated property assessment and to decide priorities for improving their safety during disasters.

Inmates Working In Jail.
Even though the Tulsa County jail has more than 1,000 prisoners, there is no law that would permit them to earn credits against their sentence by doing work in the jail.
With no incentives to work, the jail can only rely upon the prisoner volunteering. This work could be general maintenance, grounds keeping, cleaning, and working in the kitchen.
Currently the jail has to rely upon either detention officers doing these jobs or hiring outside businesses.
Allowing the prisoners to earn credits against their sentence would shorten the time they are in custody while saving taxpayer dollars by reducing the jail’s overhead. This work credit would also follow any prisoners who are transferred to the Department of Corrections and thereby shorten their stay and cost in the state prison system as well.

Misdemeanor Drug Diversion
With the decriminalization of certain drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, there is a growing concern that those arrested for simple drug possession will be arrested and sentenced to serve their time in the Tulsa County jail. This would increase the cost of running the jail. Also, it is important to realize that many of these individuals have drug addiction problems and would benefit more from evaluation and intervention than being incarcerated for what is now considered a minor crime.
Similar to the City of Tulsa’s program to divert those arrested for alcohol offenses to the Sobering House, this legislation would allow the arresting officer to offer the offender the option of either going to the OSU Medical and Sciences Center for drug addiction evaluation or to jail.
The goal of this cooperative program between the sheriff’s office and the district attorney’s office is to divert people into evaluation and/or treatment early in the process.