In his final year as Oklahoma House speaker, Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, faces challenges like damage to the Capitol building, proposals to cut personal income taxes and improvement to the Department of Human Services.
NewsOK
BY MICHAEL MCNUTT mmcnutt@opubco.com
Published: January 8, 2012
A deteriorating state Capitol, working to improve DHS as part of a federal court settlement and reducing the state personal income tax rate are among the challenges facing House Speaker Kris Steele in his second and final year in the powerful leadership post.
Steele, R-Shawnee, said he hopes to also build on legislation passed last year, such as pro-business issues that changed how civil lawsuits are handled and procedures in the workers' compensation court — proposals that had been sought for years by Republicans but had evaded them until last year when the state for the first time had a GOP-controlled Legislature and a Republican governor.
“We're going to continue to work on that,” he said. “We've been blessed in Oklahoma in the sense that our economy is trending better than that of other states or even the national economy. We want to obviously build on the momentum that we have.”
Steele, 38, said he also wants to expand efforts last year that significantly favored alternative sentences for nonviolent offenders, such as community-based sentencing and electronic monitoring of low-risk, nonviolent offenders and bills intended to make public schools more accountable, such as assigning a letter grade to each public school and ending social promotion in public schools. He also wants to see state government modernization and consolidation efforts continue... FULL ARTICLE
Posted on
Sun, January 8, 2012
by John Cox