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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma residents will be paying more in fees at the courthouse, and lawbreakers will get squeezed for more court costs, under some of the dozens of new laws taking effect this week.
Some new education-related laws and bills implementing the new state-appropriated budget also are among the 60 bills passed by the Legislature that took effect on Friday, the first day of the new state fiscal year.
One bill expected to generate more than $11.2 million annually for Oklahoma's district courts raises to $7 from $2 the fee for alternative dispute resolution, which are when two sides in a civil case try to resolve their dispute before trial. It also increases fees for divorce, alimony, custody or support actions from $143 to $183. The same bill also doubles the fee for issuing summons and allows the court clerk to assess a new 15 percent administrative fee.
"I'm filing a divorce case this afternoon that's going to cost my client an additional $40, all because the Legislature won't adequately fund state services," said Richard Morrissette, an Oklahoma City attorney and a Democratic state legislator who opposed the fee hikes. "It's outrageous, because these fees are being placed on the backs of those who can least afford it. It's outrageous."
Another new law to generate about $2.2 million for district attorneys will double many of the fees filed in criminal cases, including traffic, misdemeanor, juvenile and felony violations.
The fee hikes were used by the Legislature as a way to help maintain funding levels for the courts and state prosecutors amid a $1.3 billion hole in the state budget.
Because the new fiscal year began Friday, many of the new laws that take effect implement the state-appropriated budget and provide direction to state agencies about how to expend funds. Besides the general appropriation bill that funds all of state government, one specific new funding law directs the Department of Human Services to spend more than $119 million on the Pinnacle Plan, a court-ordered directive to improve state services for abused and neglected children.
Another new law that caps a tax incentive for so-called "at-risk" oil and natural gas wells is expected to generate an estimated $132 million annually in revenue for schools and other state services.
More than a dozen of the new laws that took effect on Friday are education directives from the Legislature ahead of the new school year.
One bill designed to give local school districts more control over teacher evaluations would remove a requirement that a teacher's performance evaluation be tied to student test scores. Sen. John Ford who sponsored the bill says the bill addressed a concern by educators that Oklahoma's Teacher Leader Effectiveness Evaluation System, or TLE, was interfering with teachers' ability to focus on students.
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