Oklahoma school leaders are upset over Land Commission bill

Feb. 26--Oil and gas companies that are delinquent in making certain royalty payments would retain millions of dollars at the expense of Oklahoma schoolchildren under a bill expected to be heard Wednesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

During the first eight months of the current fiscal year, Oklahoma's kindergarten to 12th-grade schools would have received about $5.5 million less and higher education institutions would have received about $1.5 million less if the bill by state Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, had been law, said Harry Birdwell, secretary of the Commissioners of the Land Office.

Norman Schools Superintendent Joe Siano said of Senate Bill 1966, "We're opposed to it. ... This seems like another ill-timed bill as it pertains to public schools."

Siano said Norman schools would have lost about $115,000 so far this fiscal year if the bill were law.

Sykes did not return messages left Monday and Tuesday with his state Senate office.

Sykes' bill would cut the interest rate that oil and gas companies must pay the Oklahoma Commissioners of the Land Office on delinquent royalty payments from 12 percent to about 3 percent, Birdwell said.

Oil and gas companies would pay 12 percent interest to other state royalty owners, he said.

Birdwell said he doesn't know why Sykes would want to shortchange a state agency that benefits schoolchildren.

The bill also would require the agency to use the state attorney general's office for lawsuits involving public lands.

"Several times we have gone to the attorney general and they said, 'We don't have the forensic accounting expertise you maybe need so you may need to hire somebody external,'" Birdwell said.

However, Diane Clay, spokeswoman for Attorney General Scott Pruitt, said Pruitt has encouraged state agencies to use his office. Pruitt has hired specialist attorneys when necessary, she said.

The Commissioners of the Land Office manages about 1.1 million mineral acres and 747,000 surface acres of trust lands for the financial benefit of Oklahoma common education schools, colleges and universities. There are about 6,100 producing oil and gas wells on land managed by the commissioners.

Birdwell said that during the first week of July, his agency paid school districts about $9 million in interest from late payments and nonpayments of royalties.

"That was important money to many of the school districts in the state, particularly this year, when lots of the state had storm damage and it came at a time when many of the school districts had yet to receive appropriated dollars," Birdwell said. "They were trying to meet insurance deductibles and figure out ways to repair classrooms and get prepared for the beginning of school."

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