{"id":5369,"date":"2012-03-19T11:27:51","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=5369"},"modified":"2012-03-19T11:43:42","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T16:43:42","slug":"oklahoma-government-earns-a-d-for-deterring-corruption-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/03\/19\/oklahoma-government-earns-a-d-for-deterring-corruption-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Government Earns a \u2018D\u2019 for Deterring Corruption, Report Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5391\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/kennymiller\/796971032\/sizes\/m\/in\/photostream\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5391\" title=\"Corruption\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/03\/corruption-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/03\/corruption-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/03\/corruption.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/03\/corruption-150x113.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Kmillard92 \/ Flickr<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">\n<\/div><p>Integrity is a hard thing to measure, but it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/nation\/articles\/2007\/03\/11\/poll_character_trumps_policy_for_voters\/\">tops<\/a> the wish list when voters talk about qualities they value in public officials.<\/p><p>The State Integrity Investigation has released the results of a data-driven analysis of each state\u2019s laws and practices that promote accountability and openness and deter corruption.<\/p><p>Oklahoma earned a D and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stateintegrity.org\/your_state\">ranked<\/a> No. 38. And its most severe failings concern the budget process and the public workforce.<\/p><p><!--more--><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stateintegrity.org\/oklahoma_embedded_report\" frameborder=\"1\" width=\"500\" height=\"540\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nOklahoma\u2019s report card is above. It\u2019s interactive, so click around to see the questions behind the scores.<\/p><p>The State Integrity Investigation is a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.<\/p><p>The $1.5 million project is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stateintegrity.org\/methodology\">data-driven<\/a> and peer-reviewed. Experienced journalists graded each state government on a list of 330 specific \u201ccorruption risk indicators,\u201d which formed after interviews with experts on state government and public sector reform.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>We asked them a simple question: what issue areas mattered most in their state when it came to the risk of significant corruption occurring in the public sector?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><p><em><\/em>No state received an A.<\/p><p>Oklahoma&#8217;s 64 percent score was driven, in part, by exemptions to the open records law and lax enforcement of ethics laws. All our neighboring states were issued D&#8217;s, too, except Kansas, which earned a C.<\/p><p>Oklahoma earned Fs in four categories, and the state budget process earned the lowest score: 47 percent. Other failing categories that directly impact the Oklahoma workforce and economy involve state pensions and lobbying disclosure.<\/p>\n<h4>State Budget Process: F (47%)<\/h4><p>While Oklahoma earned 100 percent in public availability of budget records, the rest of the state budget scores were very poor. Oklahoma scored an F on questions about legislative oversight of how effectively public money was used. But the state received an F on the public\u2019s ability to access the budget process and an F on having a well-resourced budged office for nonpartisan analysis of budget proposals.<\/p><p>In Oklahoma, most of the public\u2019s information comes <em>after<\/em> the money is spent, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tulsaworld.com\/news\/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120318_11_0_Tesaes946722&rss_lnk=12\">reports<\/a> the <em>Tulsa World<\/em>\u2019s Ziva Branstetter, also the Oklahoma journalist employed by the State Integrity Investigation.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>After funds are spent, there is a lot of information available to citizens through the state&#8217;s expenditure site, Openbooks. However detailed budgetary allocations to agencies often are not available because lawmakers tend to give agencies lump sums and let them determine how to spend the funds.<\/p><p>David Blatt, director of the non-profit Oklahoma Policy Institute, said what agency directors are told by lawmakers &#8220;more or less explicitly is, &#8216;We are cutting you five percent. Figure it out. We don\u2019t want to get any calls.\u2019&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h4>State Pension Management: F (51%)<\/h4><p>Oklahoma&#8217;s State-run pension oversight and regulation also received an F.<\/p><p>Oklahoma failed at having adequate transparency laws and regulations regarding state pensions. And regulations governing conflicts of interest of state pension managers and board members received an F, too.<\/p>\n<h4>Lobbying Disclosure: F (55%)<\/h4><p>Lobbying was another low mark in Oklahoma.<\/p><p>Lobbyists\u2019 employers or principles aren\u2019t required to disclose spending, and the effectiveness of current lobbying disclosures earned a 33 percent in the State Integrity Investigation\u2019s score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Integrity is a hard thing to measure, but it tops the wish list when voters talk about qualities they value in public officials.The State Integrity Investigation has released the results of a data-driven analysis of each state\u2019s laws and practices that promote accountability and openness and deter corruption.Oklahoma earned a D and ranked No. 38. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":5391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,16],"tags":[337],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5395,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369\/revisions\/5395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}