Gov. Kevin Stitt earlier this month issued an executive order aimed at prohibiting state agencies from entering into sole source contracts with Public Relations firms, marketing companies and communications vendors.
The governor had actually vetoed legislation that targeted the State Department of Education and State School Supt. Ryan Walters from doing this.
Instead, the governor issued his executive order to expand it to include all state agencies, not only the State Education Department.
Walters has come under fire since he hired a public relations/ marketing firm to promote his own image, with the idea of the firm to set up interviews with national television and other entities at the expense of taxpayers.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers both have questioned his intentions and he’s been in a running battle for some time now with them. He’s been accused of a lack of transparency.
Some Democratic legislators even have called for efforts targeting possible impeachment.
What we agree about with the executive order is that it encompasses all state agencies, to include any department, board, commission, institution, or entity of state government.
Apparently the governor didn’t believe that targeting the State Education Department didn’t go far enough in restricting sole source contracts for these types of services with taxpayers footing the bill.
That executive order can stay in place as long as Gov. Stitt is in office. But it would terminate 90 days following the inauguration of the next governor unless terminated or continued during that time by executive order.
The current executive order appears to be at least a fix to what has been a problem with the current State School superintendent.
There’s a better solution to this that comes to mind.
The lawmakers who authored the legislation that the governor vetoed before issuing his executive order could back up and propose a bill similar to what had passed both the House and Senate previously.
The one major change, however, would be for the new legislation to encompass all state agencies, making it permanent. Oklahomans would no longer have to worry about it, provided the governor would sign the bill, which we think he would based on the action he took earlier this month.
State agencies do not need to be hiring outside public relations firms at the expense of taxpayers. Surely there are employees within all of the state agencies, commissions, institutions, and other entities of state government that are perfectly capable of performing those duties.
Many of them have spokespeople in place performing those functions now.
Utilizing current employees for these purposes is more feasible and efficient, saving state taxpayers at a minimum thousands of dollars, most likely even more.