The Workers' Compensation Commission approved its first full fiscal year budget Thursday totaling $4.5 million.
Executive Director Rick Farmer walked the three commissioners through the income and expenditure sides of the ledger during the commission meeting.
The commission was appropriated $2.750 million by the Legislature but that amount was reduced to $2.746 million when the Office of Management and Enterprise Services implemented a 0.12 percent across-the-board cut. The cut was necessary when the Board of Equalization refused to reduce the General Revenue allocation to the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program. As a result, appropriations exceeded expected revenue necessitating the cut.
The remainder of the commission's budget will come from money carried over from fiscal year 2014 and fees and fines, the largest of which is a $140 per case fee. The Court of Existing Claims, the successor to the Workers' Compensation Court, will receive the bulk of that money, said Farmer, since more cases are working their way through that system than are being handled by the commission. Nearly 1,100 cases have been filed with the commission since it officially opened its doors February 1, Farmer reported Thursday.
The commission's largest expenditure will be for personnel and benefits, Farmer said, which will require the bulk of its appropriated funds, some of its carryover money and some of the fee revenue. General operations also will be funded with some of the fee and carryover funds, he said. The agency also expects to spend approximately $217,000 on information technology, including two employees who will be shared with OMES' Information Services Division as a result of IT consolidation.
The agency also will pay out an estimated $422,000 in separation costs for 16 employees who were let go just after the start of the new fiscal year.
Commission Chair Troy Wilson said it was "unfortunate" the employees had to be let go.
Farmer and Wilson explained the employees had to be let go as a result in the change in which the commission and court now work. From February to July, the start of the new fiscal year, the commission and the court worked hand-in-hand, sharing financial resources and employees under what was called an "unprecedented agreement." With the start of the new fiscal year, however, that changed and each entity became independent.
The court kept those employees it intended to utilize and the remainder became employees of the commission, said Farmer and Wilson. "We just don't have the funds to retain everybody," Wilson said. "I want everybody to know how distasteful that is for us."
Farmer said the decision regarding which employees stayed and which were let go was made after discussions with division supervisors concerning the positions, not the specific personnel filling them, that would be needed for the commission to fulfill its mission.
The commission will pay the costs of accrued annual leave for those judges whose term expired at the end of FY2014. For those employees who lost their jobs, the commission will pay their next longevity check, annual leave and 18 months of their health insurance. Farmer said the payments amount to approximately $10,000 per employee.
