Press Release

Governor's Plan to Save 3.6 Million Approved

Governor Mary Fallin’s proposal to modernize the state’s vendor payment system and save 3.6 million dollars per year has been approved by the House of Representatives’ Government Modernization Committee.

House Bill 1086 proposes to utilize electronic payments methods such as direct deposit to pay the state’s thousands of vendor invoices. The bill is sponsored by State Representatives Jason Murphey, R-Guthrie and Josh Cockroft, R-McLoud, and State Senator Clark Jolley, R-Edmond.

Fallin called on legislators to approve the reform during her state of the state address. Fallin proposed the change after newly-elected Treasurer Ken Miller’s office explained that the state is currently spending $13.50 per vendor payment for each payment made using traditional paper conveyances such as payment warrants. This compares to electronic payments which cost the state approximately 5 cents per transfer.

Currently, approximately 230,000 checks are made with traditional paper payment conveyances. If House Bill 1086 is approved it will require nearly all vendor payments to be made by electronic payment with an estimated savings of 3.6 million dollars each year.

“This is an important reform,” Murphey explained. “This should have occurred several years ago and I appreciate the leadership of Governor Fallin and Treasurer Miller in introducing and supporting this innovative reform.”

In addition to the electronic payment proposal, House Bill 1086 represents an omnibus approach to using technology to enable taxpayer savings through efficiencies and spending transparencies.  It includes Governor Fallin’s proposal for a shared state payroll system which is also estimated to save at least 2 million dollars each year, the placement of common eduction spending transactions on the data.ok.gov website and a one-stop shop for many state documents and annual reports to be located in a searchable format for easy purview by the taxpayers at the website documents.ok.gov.

The legislation was approved by a vote of 11-1 in the last committee vote to take place before the 2011 House committee House Bill consideration deadline and now goes to the full House for approval.