The tragic news coming from Cyril, Okla., regarding the death of 4-year-old Athena Brownfield has brought forth as many questions as answers over the past few weeks.

For those not following the horrifying story, a postal worker reported to authorities a five-year-old was unattended and in a location where she was not supposed to be. This led to the investigation that found her four-year-old sister was missing and later found dead at the hands of their caregivers.

I want to extend thanks to all of those working on this case, but especially to the person who reported the incident. If not for this postal worker reporting an issue with her sister, there is no telling how long it would have gone with not knowing about the death of this child.

Unfortunately, this tragic tale is not unique. Under the most recent annual report provided by Oklahoma Human Services from July 2020 through June 2021, the abuse and neglect numbers are staggering. Human Services received 76,546 reports and determined after screening that 36,299 of them met the definition of abuse or neglect and required investigation or assessment.

While those numbers are of reports made, these can be of multiple children in families.  The numbers for individual children are equally horrifying. There were 62,326 children for whom an investigation was completed. Of those, 14,466 had a substantiated case of child abuse or neglect. Athena and her sister will be two of the children that we will see in the 2023 numbers.

Frighteningly, these numbers are significantly lower than in previous years, likely due to the isolation from the pandemic and children not being around those who might report cases of abuse and neglect.

Regarding child deaths, 42 young Oklahomans like Athena perished due to abuse and neglect cases in 2020, according to the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Some are going to look for those to blame. Many of these cases are resolved with an investigation by the state, once reported, but the abuse or neglect has likely been happening for much longer.  In the local school system, if a child is being kept at home under the pretense of being home-schooled, local schools have no idea about what happens with these children.  Additionally, there is no requirement under law for an annual well-being check by a pediatrician.

What can we do to help stop abuse and neglect?  Answers are not easy. Under the guise of “parental rights,” the above scenarios will be hard to change. 

The most important thing we can all do under current law is if you believe a child is being abused or neglected, you have a legal responsibility to report it under Oklahoma state law. This includes teachers in the classroom, who now must report to legal authorities first and not their direct supervisors in the school system.

If you feel the situation is an emergency, please call 911, and if you suspect an issue regarding a child facing abuse or neglect, call the Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 1-800-522-3511.

About the author: Joe Dorman, is CEO of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy now celebrating its 40th Anniversary. The organization was established in 1983 by a group of citizens seeking to create a strong advocacy network that would provide a voice for the needs of children and youth in Oklahoma, particularly those in the state’s care and those growing up amid poverty, violence, abuse and neglect, disparities, or other situations that put their lives and future at risk. Our mission statement: “Creating awareness, taking action and changing policy to improve the health, safety, and well-being of Oklahoma’s children.”

Opinion: The Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln rebuilds itself every two years. Tuesday January 24th at 6 pm that process begins in Tulsa County.

New Republican leadership is needed at the County, State and National levels. Recently, power accumulation has been the goal and building the precincts the great failure. Convention attendance is shrinking. When conservatives should be most united in the face of multiple crises instigated by demon Democrats, Republicans have been divided by feckless personal ambition.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has run the party since 2017, but this cycle’s challengers are significant. Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent national attorney and Republican committeewoman and Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow have announced candidacy. Many favor Dhillon as it appears the GOP must often fight Democrats in court.

Grassroot activists are cheering A.B.R. (Anyone But Ronna). Dhillon has led legal action for Republicans nationwide and Lindell has contributed significant resources to challenging questionable voting shenanigans nationwide. Many assert either would be better than the repeated failures McDaniel has orchestrated.

In Tulsa County, the last convention was a disaster with the personality cult of Ronda Voldemort (sp?) Smith running roughshod over long-standing protocols (click here for more). Smith has used her office to select candidates in primaries – thus causing division among rank-and-file Republicans. Smith has favored some Republican Clubs and attacked others that may not have goosestepped to her every dictate. She has limited Executive Committee participation and failed to hold regular County Committee Meetings – again showing the management style of Marxist Democrats.

When a candidate for county office was accused in a primary contest of felony ballot harvesting (click here for more), Smith allowed the candidate to pitch his defense on local media in the Tulsa County GOP headquarters office in an obvious effort to wrap that asserted criminal action in the Republican brand. That candidate’s primary effort failed by nearly 60 percent of the Republican vote. Said another way, local leadership represents less than 40 percent of registered Tulsa County Republican voters.

Late in 2022, a potential candidate for a 2024 election visited the Tulsa County Republican Headquarters and asked at the front desk what help and resources were available for the race. Chairwoman Ronda came from her back office to the front declaring that the GOP had a candidate already selected. That discouraged potential public participation in the election process contrary to the spirit if not specific rules of the Republican Party.

Precinct Meetings are neighborhood gatherings, but according to Ronda’s decrees, elected Precinct Officials will be under the control of a “meeting facilitator” selected by Ronda in meetings organized mostly with multiple precincts by Oklahoma House District. These meetings were separate and long organized and conducted by each Precinct Chair – Ronda has not even reached out to the current elected Chairs or Vice Chairs as she apparently endeavors to build a party of minions.

Announced Tulsa County meetings by Oklahoma House District

House Districts 9, 11 & 74, New Life Church, 12215 N Garnett Rd, Collinsville 74021

House Districts 16 & 24, New Beginnings Church, 4104 E. 151st St S, Bixby 74008

House Districts 72 & 73, Central Library – Greadington Center, 400 Civic Center, 74103

House Districts 77 & 78, Memorial Drive United Methodist 7903 E 15th St., 74112

House Districts 29 & 66, Charles Page Library, 551 E. 4th St, Sand Springs 74063

House Districts 30 & 68, Heartland Church, 4506 S. Vancouver Ave, Tulsa 74107

House District 71, Spirit Life Church – Life Cafe, 5345 S. Peoria Ave, Tulsa 74105

House District 70, The Embassy Church, 7100 E. 31st St, Tulsa 74145

House District 79, Lafortune Community Center, 5202 S. Hudson Ave, Tulsa 74135

House Districts 23 & 75, Battle Creek Clubhouse, 3200 N Battlecreek, B.A. 74012

House Districts 76 & 98, Waters Edge Event Center, 3304 S. Elm Pl, B.A. 74011

House District 69, Christ Church Episcopal, 10901 S. Yale Ave, Tulsa 74137

House District 67, TCC Southeast – Student Union, Bld. 9, 10300 E. 81st St, Tulsa 74133

House District 80, Evergreen Baptist Church, 10301 E. 111th St, Bixby 74008

Don’t know your House District and/or Precinct number – find them here

If you are unable to attend the scheduled precinct meetings but would like to attend the County and/or State Convention, you may email tulsarepublicanparty@gmail.com. A Precinct Member Data Sheet should be sent to you to complete and return, but this administration is known for it’s lack of response, so if you don’t hear back in a few days, call the office at 918-627-5702. Deadline to receive completed forms is Tuesday, January 31 at 3:00 pm.

For those that engage, opportunities to impact the party are meaningful. At the precinct meetings, you can submit resolutions to change County and State Party Platform and Rules, including those that govern conventions. The County and State will elect leadership at each Convention. The Tulsa GOP County convention will be held March 25, 2023 and the OKGOP State Convention, is scheduled May 5th & 6th.

All patriots of good intention are welcomed and encouraged to bring their diverse perspectives together at this critical time to communicate and activate to grow the party the way Abraham Lincoln taught in the beginning, bringing courageous strong voices of good heart together.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on Straight Up on Substack. Subscriptions provide the latest news delivered as it is breaking. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. Paid subscriptions support local journalism by this author and others on Tulsa Today.

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

The scourge of human trafficking is a stain on all of humanity. It invades borders, destroys communities, and robs millions of their human dignity.

It is estimated that there are more than 25 million men, women, and children who are victims of human trafficking around the world.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s annual 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report, which assesses efforts by foreign governments to combat human trafficking, 11 countries were found to have a “government policy or pattern” of human trafficking. This state-sponsored trafficking occurs in government-funded programs, through forced labor in government-affiliated sectors, sexual slavery in government camps, or through the recruitment of child soldiers.

In addition to designating some of the world’s worst perpetrators of human trafficking, the TIP report shines a spotlight on countries and individuals who are working to put an end to these abuses.

The State Department recognized the increasing efforts of 21 countries, including Cyprus, Germany, and Iceland, to combat human trafficking. Further, six individuals were honored from Bangladesh, Jordan, Liberia, Poland, Thailand, and Ukraine as TIP Report Heroes for their tireless efforts to protect survivors, punish offenders, and raise awareness of ongoing criminal practices in their countries and abroad.

Human trafficking is a crime that knows no borders. Ending this global scourge demands both action and cooperation. No single government or individual can do it alone. Governments, faith-based organizations, civil society, and survivors must work together.

Additionally, law enforcement agencies play a crucial part in the fight against this abhorrent evil. 

In August 2022, the 12th FBI-led Operation Cross Country rescued hundreds of survivors in 391 operations over a two-week period. This joint law enforcement operation coordinates efforts across the FBI, state and local police, as well as social service agencies to rescue survivors of human trafficking, particularly children, and arrest criminals that carry out these crimes.

As part of Operation Cross Country, the FBI worked with 200 state, local, and federal partners to locate 84 minor victims of child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

Additionally, 141 adult victims of human trafficking were rescued, and 85 suspects were identified or arrested.

Operation Cross Country not only works to put an end to human trafficking but also works to bring awareness and attention to the widespread tragedy of these crimes in communities across the United States.

Michelle DeLaune, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) said, “The success of Operation Cross country reinforces what NCMEC sees every day.”

Human trafficking is one of the most tragic human rights abuses of our time, and tragically, is more common than many people recognize.

National Human Trafficking Awareness Month is an urgent call to renew and strengthen our commitment to champion survivors, bring justice to perpetrators, and work together to eradicate this horrific crime.

Editor’s Note: To read more from Ambassador Callista L. Gingrich, click here.

Includes $541 million to enhance public education

Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, released his public education agenda today, which he believes will improve public education outcomes for Oklahoma children.

In his agenda, Pugh, who is the Senate education committee chairman, outlined four pillars under which he plans to file bills to improve public education in Oklahoma. The four incentive areas are: Recruiting more qualified teachers to Oklahoma classrooms; Retaining teachers already in the classroom; Rewarding high performing teachers; and Reforming the way public dollars are spent on public education.

“For far too long, Oklahoma has lagged behind the rest of the nation in education outcomes, which is doing a disservice to our children and state overall,” Pugh said. “I was tasked by Pro Tem Greg Treat this interim to come up with a plan that meets our children’s needs today, empowers parents, while ensuring we are rewarding teachers and getting better outcomes for the future of our state. This plan is aggressive, and if implemented will get us on the right path to a better, more prosperous future.”

Pugh met with over 200 superintendents, hundreds of teachers and parents and dozens of education advocacy groups over the interim to gather ideas while deciding what bills to file.

“To be clear, this is my plan, supported by bills that I am planning to file,” said Pugh “They are a direct result of input I received over the summer after conversations with superintendents, educators, parents, and education advocacy groups. As Oklahomans, and especially as lawmakers, we need to do whatever it takes to ensure our children are getting the best education possible.”

Joining Pugh at Wednesday’s announcement was Jeff James, a veteran of the United States Air Force who is the president of the Air and Space Forces Association of Central Oklahoma and the State STEM Program Coordinator for the Air Force Association.

“Sen. Pugh has outlined an agenda that aims to better prepare Oklahoma students for the future workforce they will face after high school and beyond,” James said. “This plan has the potential to completely alter the future for children in public education. I applaud my friend for his vision and efforts in putting this together.”

Another supporter of Pugh’s work is Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunwald, who said she hopes the plan is implemented to help public education across the state.

“I applaud Sen. Pugh’s plan and his efforts to go above and beyond in supporting teachers and children in public education. His legislative goals address the most pressing issues facing our profession by directing funds to incentivize more individuals to go into this amazing profession and rewarding those who stay,” Grunewald said. “We need bold actions to bring back the respect that our educators and support staff deserve. These pieces of legislation have the potential to do that. We cannot forget that these powerful legislative goals are in the best interest of the students across our state.” 

Sen. Adam Pugh’s 2023 Public Education Plan

Recruit

SB 529 – $15 million- Create Oklahoma Teacher Corps – provide scholarships to students who enter Oklahoma Colleges of Education, graduate and receive teaching certificate. Those who pass their program must commit four years of service in a Title I school or pay scholarship amount back to state.

SB 522 – $5 million – Mentorship Program – this bill will provide $500 stipends for mentors of new teachers. The goal is to pair every new teacher (both to the career or new to the district) with a mentor.

SB 361 – Create a multistate teacher licensure compact – Be the first state to recognize teacher licensure reciprocity in a multistate compact. Recognize professional experience and licensure from other states, and not lose teachers because of bureaucratic paperwork that discourages immediate entry into the workforce upon moving to Oklahoma.

Retain

SB 364 – $25 million Paid Maternity Leave – Will give teachers who have been with a district for at least one year 12 weeks of maternity leave. With a career field that is 76% female, this will allow new mothers to take time away to be with their newborns and return to the classroom as able. Solves a key workforce issue, is pro-life, and does not force a new parent to choose between career and family.

SB 523 – $50 million School Safety – Provide the Oklahoma School Security Institute with $50 million in grant funding to allocate by application process to meet unique and individual district needs for added security personnel, infrastructure, technology, training.

SB 525 – $1 million Credentialing – Reimburse each school district to pay for recertifying each teachers’ credentials if they are asked to gain additional credentials.

Reward

SB 482 – $241 million Teacher Pay Raise – Provides a teacher pay raise. Moves starting teacher pay to $40,000 with a $3,000 raise at entry through four years. Years five-through-nine will receive $4,000; 10-14 years of experience will receive $5,000; and a teacher with 15+ years of experience will receive $6,000.

Reform

SB 531 – Remove attendance metric on A-F report card and replace with school climate survey, which includes parents, students, and teachers/staff.

SB 527 – More money toward kindergarten through third grade reading proficiency, with the ultimate goal being 100% reading proficiency for kids entering the fourth grade. Increases K-3 weights, special education weights, transportation weight, and gifted/talented, and socio-economic disadvantaged weights. The last round of NAEP scores showed Oklahoma at 25% ELA assessments.

SB 523 – Learn Everywhere Bill – Recognize that learning takes place in non-traditional settings and allow for credit to include internships, externships, part-time jobs, or other non-classroom activities that directly contribute to learning and college or career advancement.

SB 516 – $1.5 million – Charter School Reform – Combine the virtual charter school board and charter school board. Add stricter accounting requirements, financial controls, and reporting criteria. Require any authorizer fee be expended on charter school oversight, provide training for charter school authorizers, and prevent authorizer ‘shopping’. 

SB 359 – $60M – Funding Formula – Move the funding formula ad valorem dollars to account for previous year actuals and not projected. All chargeables in the funding formula are based on actual numbers except for ad valorem dollars, that is based on a projection. This also accounts for potential ad valorem protests, which can withhold ad valorem dollars despite projected incoming money.  Would predominantly protect rural schools.

SB 520 – Graduation Credits – Build 3 graduation tracks to include college, career, and core. Require four years of math and science for college track to increase STEM preparedness. Recognize that a career and core track can still pursue college and concurrent enrollment. Address Oklahoma’s lagging STEM standards and help build modern high-tech workforce. Opportunity to leverage many partnerships across private and public sector to include local businesses, higher education, career tech and more.

Funding Request – Move to common Student Information System and update SDE accounting system $11 million – provide SDE and all school districts with technology upgrade to ensure seamless and standardized date entry system.  Will also allow SDE to track how schools spend weighted dollars.  For example, K-3 funding should be spent directly on K-3 students.  There are federal requirements on funding but no such requirements on tracking accountability and transparency of state dollars in funding formula.

Millions of people saw Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapse on the football field January 2. He was tackled, fell down, and at first stood up. Even to aficionados of the game, this looked no different from what usually happens throughout the game.

But then his heart stopped, and he collapsed. At this moment, he has returned home and continues his road to recovery after vigorous CPR on the field. In all likelihood, his promising career is over.

There is an outpouring of sympathy for this young man and his family, suddenly struck by a terrible tragedy. And also a flood of social media posts from both sides of the political narrative: it must have been the COVID shot, or the “safe and effective” COVID shot had nothing to do with it.     

People are learning from well-polished presentations about commotio cordis, an extremely rare event. A sudden impact to the chest throws the heart into a fatal rhythm disturbance. Classically, it occurs in young boys not wearing protective gear who get hit in the chest with a baseball or similar projectile traveling around 40 mph—not in older, well-protected football players. Still, Hamlin did get hit in the chest.

By now, people have noticed that a lot of athletes have been collapsing on the field, and a high percentage of them die. Many are not even engaged in contact sports. Sudden death when engaged in strenuous activity that triggers a surge of adrenalin is not new. Certain congenital heart conditions, such as hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, predispose to it, and aspiring athletes should be carefully screened for this. There are also several possibilities for which screening is not ordinarily done.

Is sudden death occurring more commonly, or is it just getting more attention?

One may also ask whether it is more common in persons who have had COVID shots. This is extremely hard to answer when almost all have gotten the shot because they are not allowed to play if they haven’t. Strenuous exertion in persons who get the shot or the placebo was not part of the clinical trials.

Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) has been recognized as an adverse side effect. It is said to be “rare and mild.” We do not know how many asymptomatic cases might be causing scarring in the heart that might predispose to rhythm problems—we don’t screen for it.

While people are genuinely sympathetic to Hamlin, they are also probably asking: what about me, or my husband, son, or brother? Or the NFL might be wondering what about the future of football? Or of the organizations that have mandated the shots? Are they protected from liability, as the manufacturers are? Under federal law, the shots are supposed to be voluntary, with informed consent about possible adverse effects.

And what should we do now? Hamlin’s family deserves a diagnosis. Everybody wishes him full recovery, but if he tragically dies, he should have a forensic autopsy, looking for inflammation in the heart muscle and preserving tissue for tests such as immunohistologic staining that might become available later.

What about the other players? There should be automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) immediately available on the field. If we were serious about avoiding future tragedies in case the COVID shots just might play a role, one might consider the following:

• Suspend further injections until damage from the shots can be ruled out (some countries such as Denmark do not recommend compulsory shots in young men).
• Sideline players for two weeks if they do get an injection.
• Perform cardiac MRIs looking for scars in all players.
• Demand a study that screens a large population of vaccine recipients with cardiac enzymes (troponins), ultrasound, and MRI to check for inflammation.

Which, after all, is more important: the hearts of our people, or the profits of the vaccine purveyors? Instead of guessing, or siding with one narrative or the other, let’s get an answer to the question with objective study, using our most sophisticated diagnostic tools.

Editor’s Note: Jane M. Orient, M.D. has been published frequently by Tulsa Today since 2010 – 61 offerings here to date . Her columns have provided critical information to readers about alternative treatments and warned against public health incompetence and misinformation during the entire COVID train-wreck. Dr. Orient is listed in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s best selling book, “The Real Anthony Fauci“ on “The Heroic Healers Honor Roll” along with Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet who is also a frequent contributor (30 posts) here. Only Tulsa Today provided these alternative viewpoints locally – now proven by time to have been more accurate than ever-changing official narratives.

Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, and the second through fifth editions of Sapira’s Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis published by Wolters Kluwer. She authored books for schoolchildren, Professor Klugimkopf’s Old-Fashioned English Grammar and Professor Klugimkopf’s Spelling Method, published by Robinson Books, and coauthored two novels published as Kindle books, Neomorts and Moonshine. More than 100 of her papers have been published in the scientific and popular literature on a variety of subjects including risk assessment, natural and technological hazards and nonhazards, and medical economics and ethics. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Oklahoma University President Joseph Harroz sent out a letter on October 18, 2021, to kick off OU’s Free Speech Week. But it doesn’t take much effort at discernment to understand that both his letter and Free Speech Week itself, are nothing more than an attempt to virtue signal his way out of taking responsibility for the discrimination inherent in the ideology he is cramming down the throats of OU students, teachers, and families.

Harroz begins his letter by hitting all the free speech buzz words. But at the same time, he expands the purpose of a university to include teaching graduates to “live together in harmony.” As we see later in the letter, this new mission will implicitly exclude those who dissent to CRT/DEI ideology.

In fact, in the very next sentence, he immediately draws a bright line distinction between what speech will be tolerated at OU and what speech will be excluded through the practice of “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.”

The OU President’s mandate is clear: ‘either you accept the views and practices of CRT/DEI/Antiracism as gospel, you are not being Inclusive – and if you are not being Inclusive, you will be Excluded.’

Next, Harroz proves he is an adept practitioner of DEI coercion, through the manipulation of language. He employ’s a law professor’s like cunning to redefine words like “critical,” or terms like “free speech,” by shifting the true contextual foundation of each, to fit into DEI’s practice of CRT ideology.

And for the remainder of the letter, President Harroz is “Doing the Work” of DEI manipulation on the minds of OU.

For example, he knows that his DEI Officers have changed the definition of “critical thinking.” He also knows that the word “critical” is now defined only to mean the critiquing of social systems of POWER by weaponizing historical OPPRESSION, against now living.

Click to read more of this story by J. Mark Ousley, Un Wokeable, on Substack.

Editor’s Note: Mark Ousley is also active on Facebook with stories and podcasts featuring Oklahoma higher and common education, popular culture and public policy. He holds foundational belief in Liberty, equal application of law, and objection to abuse of authority by dictate or forced false narrative.

Mark Ousley is one of a growing number of powerful Oklahoma conservative new media voices.

Your opinions are welcome below.

Today Oklahoma CareerTech State Director Brent Haken begins official duties.

Haken was named to the position in November by the Oklahoma State Board of Career and Technology Education. He is the ninth director in ODCTE’s history.

“I am honored to begin serving the state of Oklahoma in meeting the educational, training and workforce development needs of our state,” Haken said. “Oklahoma has the nation’s premier system for career and technical education due to a foundation laid by passionate and dedicated Oklahomans,” Haken said in a press release.

“As an educator and a product of the Oklahoma CareerTech System, I understand the opportunity we have in unlocking the state’s potential for meeting the workforce needs of Oklahoma businesses and providing pathways to rewarding careers for Oklahoma students. Empowering people through education moves Oklahoma forward.”

Lee Denney, who has been serving as the CareerTech interim state director since February 2022, will remain at Oklahoma CareerTech as interim chief of staff.

“Brent Haken is a leader with vision and innovative ideas,” Denney said. “He will be able to lead Oklahoma CareerTech forward as we continue to provide skilled workers for Oklahoma industries.”

Haken comes to Oklahoma CareerTech from Morrison Public Schools, where he served as superintendent since 2019.

He began his educational career teaching agricultural education in Wellston and Stillwater before moving to Morrison, where he became elementary assistant principal and special education director in July 2015 and high school principal in July 2016. He also served as testing coordinator.

Haken received the 2022 Superintendents Chairman’s Award from the Oklahoma Youth Expo and was the Oklahoma Association of Superintendents District 4 Superintendent of the Year for 2022. He is a member of the Oklahoma State Professional Education Council and the Cooperative Council for Secondary Administrators.

He has been a member of the Oklahoma Career Technology Master Teacher Committee, the National Association of Agricultural Educators and the Association of Career Technical Educators and served on the board and as vice president of the Oklahoma Agricultural Education Teachers Association.

Haken earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Central Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Oklahoma State University.

About Oklahoma CareerTech

The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education provides leadership and resources and assures standards of excellence for a comprehensive statewide system of career and technology education. The system offers programs and services in 29 technology center districts operating on 60 campuses, 391 PK-12 school districts, 15 Skills Centers campuses that include three juvenile facilities and 32 adult education and family literacy providers.

The agency is governed by the State Board of Career and Technology Education and works closely with the State Department of Education and the State Regents for Higher Education to provide a seamless educational system for all Oklahomans.

Analysis: It was Oklahoma’s steadfast and unshakable commitment to Christian and conservative ideals last November that made possible some lofty moments on the capitol steps last Monday as Governor Kevin Stitt delivered his second inaugural address.

November’s voters remained unmoved by over 50 million dollars of combined campaign money from outside organizations including the teacher’s union (NEA/OEA) begging us to shun both Governor Kevin Stitt and Education Superintendent Ryan Walters. 

None of this was lost on the Governor, as he said, “Because it was you – the voter – who rejected special interests last November that were fighting to stop our Top Ten agenda. You recognized that these hidden groups were fighting to preserve their monopolies, their control and unfair advantage.“

Governor Stitt elevated his comments to a national audience as he quoted two U.S. presidents, Lincoln and Reagan, and boasted that unlike much of the rest of the nation, Oklahoma did not set the constitution aside during the global Covid scare in 2020.

Governor Stitt said, “In 2020, Oklahoma did not put our Constitution in the attic! Nor did we set aside the principles of our forefathers who sought to establish a government guaranteeing the individual’s right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The great American Dream has endured in this state.”

He spoke of the American dream as having found a home in Oklahoma when emphasizing that we maintained our loyalty to constitutional principles. The Governor noted further that it was for that reason alone, while the rest of the world’s economies shriveled, Oklahoma grew.

He reminded us of those Reaganesque ideals of the eighties when he reflected on the essential nature of government that is small and limited:

“In Oklahoma, we acknowledge that the government doesn’t create jobs!

“Government’s role is to ensure a level playing field for everyone to compete.

“We have bureaucrats in Washington DC who think the only solution to improving the plight of our fellow Americans is more government.

“But government is not the solution to our problems… Most of the time, government IS the problem!”

He gave more than a tithe of his time to speak of the future of education in Oklahoma. He spoke of a future where education is placed under the full authority of parents who are set free from governmental control over children.

The Governor envisions a time when the individual taxpayer, the one who funds education, will determine how those funds are used for each child.

Governor Stitt said, “And that means, we must give students more access to learning methods that fit their unique needs. We need MORE schools – not less schools like the fearmongers claimed when we called for change.

“We expanded education freedom for more students because we believe every kid deserves the best education possible, regardless of his or her economic status or zip code.”

Referencing the national economic and moral disasters imposed upon us from Washington, he closed with a challenge, “Friends, today I am asking you to join me. Leave Washington DC to its political games and let us focus here at home [as] Oklahomans.”

With that kind of bold talk and with equally bold action, I believe Oklahoma may have a man who can serve as an example to the nation. A man who, in his faithfulness in the smaller things of state government, will inspire a return, nationally, to the Christian and conservative ideals that made the nation great.

About the author: Bob Linn is president of Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC). The mission of OCPAC is to promote and support public servants who oppose expansive government while promoting Constitutional Liberty, Free Markets, and a Biblical Worldview.

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor has announced a conciliation agreement with St. John Health System resolving allegations that St. John Health System violated the Oklahoma Anti-Discrimination Act and the Civil Rights Act. 

“In defending the religious freedoms of our healthcare heroes, our job is to ensure that Oklahomans’ civil rights are upheld, and they are made whole,” said Attorney General O’Connor. “And we are pleased that St. John Health System has agreed to take the measures necessary to make that happen.”

While St. John Health System disputes the allegations made by employees in complaints filed with the Attorney General’s Office, it has agreed to certain terms to resolve the allegations. St. John Health System has confirmed that identified employees who were suspended or terminated during the height of the pandemic, after religious exemption requests were denied, were extended an unqualified offer of reinstatement and/or compensated for lost wages and benefits related to their suspension and/or termination.

St. John Health System also agreed to establish a claims process for employees or former employees who believe they suffered religious discrimination at the hands of St. John Health System. Such employees should contact the Attorney General’s Office at (405) 521-3921 to bring their claims to the Attorney General. Further detail is available on the Oklahoma Attorney General’s website at https://www.oag.ok.gov/articles/attorney-generals-office-reaches-agreement-st-john-health-system.

In reaching this agreement, St. John Health System confirms its continued commitment to compliance with all applicable state and federal employment laws.

St. John Health System’s spokesperson commented, “The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office and St. John Health System are committed to serving the people of Oklahoma. We have reached a mutual agreement regarding the COVID-19 vaccination that protects the health and safety of patients and caregivers and honors the religious beliefs of employees.”

For decades, the goal of increased government financial transparency has been widely shared across political parties and stakeholder groups. The Financial Data Transparency Act (S.4295), proposed by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, takes a major step toward openness and accessibility by directing seven financial regulators, including the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, to develop “machine-readable” data standards that accurately reflect the existing reporting standards. So, it is surprising that this transparency measure has attracted stiff opposition when it has proven so successful in corporate reporting. A webinar is upcoming on topic.

The movement to convert documents to machine-readable data that computer applications like spreadsheets can use is not new. The FDIC adopted machine-readable reporting standards for bank call reports in 2005. These required regulatory reports collect the basic financial data of commercial banks in the form of a balance sheet, an income statement and supporting schedules. The Securities and Exchange Commission similarly modernized public company reporting in 2009 by requiring publicly traded companies to report their information in machine-readable data language. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did so in 2021. Many other countries also have modernized their financial disclosures. This global trend affirms a recent statement by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “Digitization will enable government agencies to cut costs, increase efficiency and reduce waste. Congress must know that digital modernization is a priority for the American people.”

Currently, government financial reports available on the MSRB’s Electronic Municipal Market Access platform are mostly in PDF form. These documents can range up to hundreds of pages and are often resistant to copying and pasting into applications, like spreadsheets and databases, and are not always searchable due to the use of embedded images in the documents. Even sophisticated users are challenged to find on EMMA the information necessary to independently evaluate the financial well-being of governments that issue municipal bonds.

The situation contrasts strongly with public stock and bond markets overseen by the SEC. When the SEC decided to advance transparency for corporations through machine-readable disclosure in 2008, it chose the Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, a globally adopted, royalty-free standard for expressing financial data.

Visitors to the SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system can see company financial reports on web pages that are easily searched, copied and downloadable for quick analysis. More importantly, the financial data from EDGAR can be easily processed by third parties, which republish it at no charge to individual investors on Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch and numerous other free web sites.

Critically, machine-readable data speeds analysis for the benefit of investors, regulators and trust in the public markets. These benefits are long overdue for the municipal bond market, which comprises nearly $4 trillion in outstanding securities. Importantly, the Financial Data Transparency Act gives financial regulators the choice of which data standards to apply, on a case-by-case basis, if it is free and open to any user.

If the FDTA were to be enacted and implemented as currently written, the MSRB would be authorized to develop standards that are based on existing information collection requirements, making municipal financial disclosure more accessible, less ambiguous and more trustworthy. These standards would apply to the brokers and dealers whose business is state and local government bond financing (the MSRB does not have the authority to regulate issuers and the FDTA does not change that). Ultimately, the data in these documents will be processed by financial data aggregators and made available to small investors and taxpayers for free on third-party websites, like www.truthinaccounting.org. Just as it is easy to find revenues and expenses for Apple, Google and Microsoft today, anyone interested will be able to quickly retrieve similar statistics for Madison, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; and Flint, Michigan.

In a time of rising interest rates, issuers of municipal bonds should be looking for any opportunity to reduce the cost of borrowing. The improved information flow that results from common machine-readable disclosure practices is one such opportunity.

Those in opposition voice concerns of excessive costs to transform existing archaic systems. However, companies or governments generating machine-readable reports do not have to rewrite or replace their accounting systems. Data languages, like XBRL and XML, are just tagging systems applied to finalized financial statements. The tags that are applied to the reports are defined by the existing information collection standards. That is, the reporting requirements don’t change, but are given greater significance because machine-readable tags are defined for them for use across a variety of reports. 

Data standards are built on reporting standards — not the other way around, so existing charts of accounts can remain unchanged. To produce machine-readable versions of the financial reports, these tags can be applied to documents by third parties or by financial statement filers themselves using commercially available software. The global market for this software is competitive, and this has led to lower prices than are reported by those opposed to the legislation.

Because the MSRB regulates financial intermediaries rather than government bond issuers themselves, it will be up to these companies to ensure that conforming machine-readable statements are uploaded to EMMA. These financially savvy players will be able to assist smaller governments that may lack the resources to use tagging technology or select vendors to perform tagging. Also, the FDTA gives the MSRB the discretion to delay or exempt the application of machine-readable standards to smaller reporting entities.

Another objection to the municipal finance language in the FDTA is that the implementation timeline is too fast, and any taxonomy (list of financial statement elements) produced by the MSRB will be inflexible, thus hamstringing some or all of the varied types of government entities. These critics seem unaware of the work of the XBRL US Standard Government Reporting work group that has already produced four versions of a government reporting taxonomy, the last one in conjunction with the University of Michigan’s Center for Local, State and Urban Policy. The working group has sought and incorporated input from government accountants, municipal bond analysts, academics and other stakeholders. Its work can give the MSRB a huge head start toward developing its own standard. Further the working group has leveraged the chosen non-proprietary data language to build flexibility into the taxonomy so it can support a wide array of financial statement filers.

It is confusing why anyone would voice opposition to a movement designed to bring more transparency in financial reporting. In 2009, when the SEC first required publicly traded companies to post their financial reports in machine-readable data, organizations issued a Best Practice statement to members recommending they “monitor developments in standardized electronic financial reporting (e.g., [XBRL]) and apply that language to their electronic document process when appropriate.” It was clear, even in 2009, that machine-readable data facilitates additional transparency to financial disclosures. The ease of implementing machine-readable data standards has greatly improved, with millions of financial statement filers — corporate, nonprofit and public sector — now producing standardized electronic financial reports across the world.

Fourteen years after regulators began applying machine-readable data standards to corporate financial reports, the time has come to extend this technology to the entities regulated by the MSRB too — that is, the brokers and dealers whose business is state and local government bond financing. It’s time to move governments from the status quo into the digital age. Citizens, taxpayers, elected officials and other users of government financial data desire the transparency and accessibility that is provided by the machine-readable data required by the Financial Data Transparency Act. 

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared November 16, 2022 here. To get the top stories on government finance, accounting, and transparency in your inbox every morning, click here!

On this topic, XBRL US is hosting a webinar January 24, that is open to the public. This webinar will provide insight into the legislation. The University of Michigan’s Center for Local State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) has partnered with XBRL US to develop open, nonproprietary financial data standards that represent government financial reporting which someone could freely leverage to support the FDTA. And our Director, Christine Kuglin, was part of that working group creating the necessary taxonomies to make this happen. She is now working with the town of Lone Tree, Colorado, to accomplish the same goal. We are emerging as thought leaders ensuring compliance with this landmark transparency legislation.  Please join the webinar.