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| Governor Mary Fallin |
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 Reps. Jason Murphey (R-Guthrie), Josh Cockroft (R-McLoud), and state Sen. Clark Jolley (R-Edmond).
Fallin called on legislators to approve the reform during her State of the State address. Fallin proposed the change after the Office of State Finance indicated that the state could be spending up to $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 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 each year, the placement of common education 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.
House Bill 1086 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.
