Oklahoma House of Representatives
December 29, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: State Rep. Jari Askins
Capitol: (405) 557-7327
Duncan: (580) 255-5505
Contact: State Rep. Sue Tibbs
Capitol: (405) 557-7379
Tulsa: (918) 663-3915

By MIKE W. RAY
House Media Division Director
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Among the new state laws that go into effect Jan. 1 are measures to regulate athlete agents, prevent predatory mortgage lending, and authorize health and law enforcement agencies to use 9-1-1 telephone service to alert the public in emergency situations.

Six bills the Oklahoma Legislature approved in 2003 become law on New Year's Day 2004.
-- House Bill 1465 by Rep. Jari Askins, D-Duncan, and Sen. Mike Morgan, D-Stillwater, creates the Uniform Athlete Agents Act; it replaces existing state law on athlete registration.

The new law requires athlete agents to register with the Oklahoma Secretary of State, for an annual fee of $1,000.

"More and more student athletes are looking at professional contracts," Askins said. For example, she noted, several college athletes across the nation have already announced that at the end of this season they intend to turn 'pro' and make themselves available for the football or baseball drafts. As a consequence, she related, athlete
agents are "crossing state lines" to conduct business. HB 1465 is intended to "make it easier to track this activity" throughout the country, Askins said.

The new law also gives educational institutions a right of action for damages arising from violations of the new law. The intent of that provision is "to protect student athletes" if, for instance, they believe they are pressured into signing a sports contract. In an event such as that, the state would be able to punish the agent without
penalizing the school, said Askins, an attorney.

-- House Bill 1574 by Rep. Joe Dorman, D-Rush Springs, and Sen. Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, creates the Oklahoma Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act.
It is intended to deter predatory mortgage loans that contain high fees and rates and are designed to take advantage of a borrower who is in a financial pinch. The legislation imposes new limits on refinancing, limits prepayment penalties, and requires lenders to verify the ability of a borrower to repay the loan. The lender must justify that
refinancing a mortgage is in the borrower's best interest, and if not, the lender is subject to penalties.

HB 1574 also requires a no-mandatory-arbitration provision to be incorporated into loan documents unless certain requirements are met.

-- House Bill 1650 by Rep. Sue Tibbs and Sen. Nancy Riley, both R-Tulsa, enacts a public safety measure similar to the "Amber Alert."

It authorizes the use of '911' emergency telephone service by public law enforcement officials statewide, or public health officials in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, to notify citizens of an emergency or to transmit information about an emergency.

When, for instance, law enforcement officers are seeking a missing child, police can tape record a message that includes the name and description of the child, what the child was wearing when last seen, where and when the child was last sighted, and then place that message on the 911 line. That equipment can automatically dial several hundred homes and businesses simultaneously, enabling authorities to broadcast
the message quickly to an entire city or to a particular area, Tibbs explained.

"It's the opposite of what you typically think of 911," she said. Rather than a distressed citizen dialing 911 to notify a police department of a crime or a traffic accident, "Law enforcement officials can use the 911 line to alert citizens about a public emergency."

-- Senate Bill 643 by Sen. Kenneth Corn and Rep. Larry Ferguson authorized several changes in the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System. Corn, D-Poteau, and Ferguson, R-Cleveland, chair the Senate and House committees on retirement laws, respectively.

The major change in the law is an increase in contribution rates for state and local governments, to be phased in after July 1, 2006. For state agencies the rates will increase from 10 percent of compensation to 16 percent after July 1, 2011. For local governments, employer and employee contribution rates will increase from 13.5 percent to 19.5 percent after June 30, 2012.

Also, non-elected OPERS members may elect to increase their retirement benefit for subsequent credited years of service, from the present 2 percent to 2.5 percent of their final average salary. To do so, an employee must raise his/her contribution to the pension system by 2.91 percent annually.

OPERS is a pension system that covers approximately 70,000 active and retired workers plus former but vested employees, and their beneficiaries (spouses and children).

-- House Bill 1712 specifies that the value of investment in property used by an oil refinery for the desulphurization of gasoline or diesel fuel is to be excluded from the capitalization used in the determination of fair market value, if the property would qualify as exempt under the five-year manufacturing ad valorem tax exemption.

-- House Bill 1474 clarifies a gray area of state law regarding ad valorem tax exemptions for property in Oklahoma owned by a non-profit, charitable organization based in another state.

In 2003 the Oklahoma Legislature approved 486 bills and joint resolutions: 230 House bills and 253 Senate bills, plus one House Joint Resolution and two Senate Joint Resolutions (including SJR 21, which prohibits smoking in most indoor workplaces).

Almost all of those measures have been implemented. However, two of the Senate bills and one section of a House bill do not go into effect until July 1, 2004.

* Senate Bill 423 will require an applicant for a driver's license to submit to digital fingerprint scanning in an effort to deter identify theft. Principal authors of the proposal were Sen. Robert M. Kerr, D-Altus, and Rep. Bill Paulk, D-Oklahoma City.

* In Senate Bill 724, Oklahoma will adopt the Uniform Securities Act.

* One section in House Bill 1356 authorizes a tax credit for donations to an independent biomedical research institute. That provision limits the tax credit to $1,000 per taxpayer, and caps the credit at a cumulative total of $2 million per calendar year.
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