On final day of session, House passes bill to limit Ryan Walters' education spending

A divided Oklahoma House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that includes sections designed to act as guardrails for the some of the financial practices of the state Department of Education under state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters.

As the legislature moved toward adjournment, the House spend more than an hour discussing Senate bill 1122, which passed by a 57-35 vote, even after Walters argued in an email to legislators that it contained sections that were unconstitutional and could result in “catastrophic consequences for nearly every single division in the agency.”

One section of the bill forbids the agency from using money under its control to secure media interviews or other public promotional purposes. Another would require the agency not to decline, refuse participation in or choose not to apply for any federal grant funding that the agency had received before fiscal year 2023 without legislative approval.

Both sections were included in the bill due to actions taken by Walters, according to Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, the chair of the House Appropriations and Budget education subcommittee.

“His conduct has shown in the past that he’s not willing to do what the Legislature asks,” McBride said. “He’s thumbed his nose at the attorney general. … I just don’t think that he’s trustworthy.

“This is about somebody that is an agency head and the way that they’re conducting their agency. It is our job, the House and the Senate, to make sure that those funds are spent correctly, instead of passing it off to somebody else. It’s our job to deal with this.”

The bill, approved by the Senate on Wednesday, now heads to Gov. Kevin Stitt. Should Stitt veto it, an override would require a two-thirds majority, which the measure did not receive on passage.

On Friday, Stitt didn't commit one way or the other when asked if he'd sign or veto the bill.

"If someone is using state resources for self-promotion, that's wrong. I want to stop that," Stitt said, noting his first executive order in 2019 was to ban state agencies from hiring lobbyists. "I may do another executive order to stop state agencies from hiring outside PR firms. I don't like it. I don't like it. But I also don't like picking on one executive agency, or the Department of Education. If there's a rule that's good for one agency, maybe let's have it across the board for all state agencies. Let's not pick on just one agency. So we're still reviewing that. It's part of the budget in some kind of limits bill. We're looking at that. I know that was a very controversial piece of legislation on the (House) floor."

Stitt also said if an agency has an internal communications department -- as the state Department of Education does -- "then why are we hiring a PR person? I think it's a waste of taxpayer money all across the board."

In his email to lawmakers, Walters said the agency’s legal counsel was of the “belief that all departments and programs will need to be shuttered as an implementation of this law.” He said the agency’s offices of school security, teacher recruitment and retention, SoonerStart, school choice and legal services “will be negatively impacted, or potentially shut down” if the bill becomes law.

Walters also said the agency’s website, state Teacher of the Year program and Teacher Signing Bonus programs also could be shut down. He attached a seven-page “legal opinion” signed by the agency’s new general counsel, Michael Beason.

After the vote, Walters issued a scathing statement.

“What we’ve seen today is an unprecedented political attack against our agency by Mark McBride along with his hard left allies among the democrats, teachers unions, and LGBT groups,” Walters said. “This is a sad and embarrassing day for the Oklahoma Legislature. If their concern were truly for good government, they would apply the same restrictions on all state agencies. Instead, we have seen a term-limited politician ignore the Constitution to blow a going away kiss to the unions.”

Walters has hired outside firms to produce controversial videos, schedule national media appearances

On at least three occasions since he took office, Walters has contracted with outside public relations or marketing firms. Last year, he contracted with a Houston company, Precision Outreach, to produce what he has referred to as “public awareness” videos that depicted teachers’ unions in a negative light and insinuated that transgender students were a threat to other students. Those videos, which were shown at public state Board of Education meetings, cost $22,500 in taxpayer money.

A $50,000 contract between the agency and Precision Outreach, signed Jan. 3, includes the production of 10 social media posts and two videos a month.

Investigative news website Oklahoma Watch and Oklahoma City television station KOKH reported in March the state Department of Education had spent $50,000 with Virginia-based Vought Strategies to set up national media interviews for Walters. Last week, Oklahoma Watch reported the agency had paid Vought Strategies $20,000 for the firm’s work from September through January and agreed to pay $30,000 more for work from March through June.

Earlier this year, after the first such reports about the contract with Vought Strategies surfaced, House Speaker Charles McCall suggested the Legislature could develop guidelines to end that practice. The language in SB 1122 forbids money appropriated to the state Department of Education “or under the control” of the agency to “be encumbered or expended for the purpose of securing media interviews, public relations, or other public promotional purposes unless expressly required to participate in a federal grant program.”

One legislator tried to end session abruptly rather than vote on the bill

Those opposing the bill argued that “public relations” was an expansive term and, echoing language from Walters’ email, said its approval would negatively affect agency programs. Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, said the bill was “about censorship” and, at one point, made a motion to adjourn the House session “sine die,” which would have ended the entire session immediately. Legislators voted overwhelmingly to continue.

Rep. Anthony Moore, R-Clinton, asked his colleagues to not believe the “doomsday scenario” painted by Walters and said it was an “absurd interpretation” of what might happen.

Earlier this week, McBride told The Oklahoman it’s his expectation that any current contracts between the agency and those public relations or marketing firms should be immediately terminated, should the bill become law.

Another section of SB1122 declares that “(t)he State Department of Education shall not decline, refuse participation in, or choose not to apply for any federal grant funding that had been received by the Department prior to fiscal year 2023 … without joint approval from the President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma State Senate and the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.”

The section reiterates a law passed by the Legislature last year. But in mid-May, investigative website The Frontier reported the agency had failed to apply last year for a crisis-intervention team grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that’s worth nearly $1 million. The agency had first applied for the grant in 2019, The Frontier reported, but last spring – just months after Walters became superintendent – the state agency failed to reapply for a grant through the same USDOJ program.

Last week, reporters asked Walters why the grant deadline was missed, and whether the agency apply for it this year. Walters chastised reporters for bringing up the issue and didn’t answer the questions.

“We’ve been really clear – we are not going to take federal dollars that don’t align with Oklahoma values,” said Walters, who didn’t define what he believes to be “Oklahoma values.” “We’ve also had the media dredge up stories from over a year ago. So we’re talking about a grant from over a year ago, when we were coming into office. We’d fired all of these terrible employees that were over here undermining the agency.

“We’ve continued to show a great track record of making sure that every dollar in the state of Oklahoma aligns with our values. We have an emphasis on student outcomes and getting money directly to schools. So we’re asking questions about stuff from over a year ago. I’m focused on what we’re going to do in the future and I’m going to tell you every time, we will tell the Biden administration ‘no’ in trying to socially engineer our classrooms.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Bill aimed at Ryan Walters to limit spending near final approval