Oklahoma Public Employees Association (OPEA)

In 2023, OPEA was in favor of giving cost-of-living adjustments to retired state employees. ³ OPEA supported legislation in 2022 that would pay state employees while they were “on call,”  ² establish a “hazard duty pay” for certain state employees, and require the state to pay state employees for their unused “leave time.” ²

Advocacy

ESG Litigation

The Oklahoma State Legislature passed House Bill 2034 and it was signed by Governor Kevin Stitt (R) in May 2022. ⁴ The law requires “the state to divest from any financial company that boycotts the energy industry,” according to the State of Oklahoma House of Representatives. ⁵ In May 2023, the state of Oklahoma notified 13 financial institutions that were not eligible for state contracts due to their use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment policies. ⁵

Former Oklahoma Public Employees Association President Don Keenan filed a lawsuit in November 2023 to block the enforcement of a law that prohibited the state from investing in banks that were hostile to fossil fuel companies. ⁶

Tony DeSha, the executive director of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association, said his organization supported Keenan’s lawsuit because they objected to the politicizing of pensions ⁷ and it was not taxpayer money at stake but pensioners’ money. ⁷

In May 2024, a state judge issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the law. ⁸ The judge ruled Keenan would likely succeed in his lawsuit because the law was too vague. ⁸

Wrongful Termination

The Oklahoma Public Employees Association stated it planned to sue the Oklahoma State Department of Health for what it claimed was the wrongful termination of 161 employees in October 2018. ⁹

In December 2017, health department officials stated they had to cut spending by $30 million to balance its budget. ¹⁰ An audit later found that was not the case. Then-State Auditor Gary Jones (R) said there were issues with the health department’s accounting practices and questioned the need to terminate the jobs of 198 employees. ¹⁰

Paid Maternity Leave

OPEA supported Senate Bill 16 in the Oklahoma State Legislature, ¹¹ which was introduced in May 2023. ¹²

The bill gave any full-time state employee who had worked at least two years with any state agency a minimum of six weeks of paid maternity leave. ¹¹ The bill became law and was signed by the governor in June 2023. ¹²

Pay-Raise Study

The Oklahoma Public Employees Association supported House Bill 3422 in 2022. ¹³ The bill authorized a study to examine 453 different job classifications in the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. ¹³ The study reported that 57% of Oklahoma state employees fall below the market competitive range of their salary grade and recommended increasing pay by $296 million. ¹³ House Bill 3422 was approved by the governor in May 2022. ¹⁴

Pension Systems

In 2010, the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System was only 66% funded. ¹⁵ In 2014, the Oklahoma State Legislature froze enrollment in the retirement system’s defined-benefit plan to new entrants after Nov. 15, 2014. ¹⁵ The state created a new defined-contribution plan for new hires. ¹⁵

The Reason Foundation stated that change was one of the reasons the public pension system was fully funded in 2023. ¹⁵

In 2023, OPEA asked to restore the defined-benefit pension system to all state employees. ¹³

Finances

The Oklahoma Public Employees Association had $691,941 in total revenues and $786,918 in total expenses in 2022. ¹⁶ OPEA’s total assets in 2022 were $381,590. ¹⁶