McCall Announces Formation of Oversight Committee For Future Settlements, Capital Expenditures

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 1, 2017

 

House Speaker McCall Creates Bipartisan Expenditure Oversight Committee

OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall today created a bipartisan ad hoc committee to review and approve certain House expenditures that exceed $15,000.

The House Expenditure Oversight Committee was formed based on a preliminary recommendation from the House Special Investigation Committee – currently investigating the circumstances that led to a wrongful termination settlement with a former House employee – that an oversight committee be formed to review and authorize any future legal settlements.

Speaker McCall agreed, but took the recommendation one step further. The House Expenditure Oversight Committee will not only review and authorize all future legal settlements, but will also have the authority to review and authorize all large capital and/or extraordinary expenditures that exceed $15,000. The committee will meet on an as needed basis.

“Our goal is to be more transparent and be better stewards of taxpayer funds,” said Speaker McCall, R-Atoka. “The House operates administratively just like any other state agency or private business does. We have contracts, vendors, payrolls, technology needs and other overhead expenditures. We don’t want to create a situation that slows down the day-to-day operations of the House, but where there are large expenditures of taxpayer dollars we want to be transparent and have as much input from our members as is reasonably possible.”

The members of the committee will be announced in the next few days, said Speaker McCall.

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