OKLAHOMA CITY — Lawmakers promised Monday that every employee would be paid on time after mental health officials admitted during a public hearing that they don’t know if there’s enough money in their budget to make payroll.
But lawmakers warned that they were growing impatient with Mental Health Commissioner Allie Friesen’s inability to explain specifics in her budget, and said that she shouldn’t expect any additional aid from the Legislature until she gets a better handle on the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services’ overall financial situation.
Friesen told lawmakers Monday that she’s not confident in her agency’s budget calculations and asked for help from the Legislature. She returned to the Capitol to testify before lawmakers for the second time in four weeks after her agency abruptly revealed last week it couldn’t afford its more than $6 million payroll.
But weeks after hearings began in the House, lawmakers said they’re frustrated and angry with the lack of answers from the agency as the deadline for legislators to finalize the upcoming state budget rapidly approaches.
“I think there’s frustration levels on both sides of this, and they’re getting higher and higher and higher every single day,” said Sen. Paul Rosino, R-Oklahoma City, co-chair of the select committee. “I appreciate that the department is saying that they are not confident in their numbers, but the Legislature stands ready to take care of our state employees, but at this time, probably not moving further with any other kind of budget requests until we really understand the financial situation.
The agency is facing several probes following reports of a $43 million deficit and a still unexplained request for a $6.2 million supplemental appropriation to help the department make ends meet through the end of the current fiscal year.
In previous hearings, Friesen and interim Chief Financial Officer Skip Leonard said they were confident that the deficit was $43 million and only a $6.2 million supplemental appropriation was needed. But neither could explain how those numbers were reached or how $6.2 million would be enough. A revised budget request for the 2026 fiscal year has yet to be delivered to lawmakers.
Friesen again pointed some of the blame for these financial issues on previous leadership.
“These numbers are changing, not because we’re indecisive or disorganized, but because we are for the first time in a very long time, uncovering the full depth of financial instability that has been hidden under layers of dysfunction,” Friesen said. “Those who are attempting to paint our efforts as incompetence are conveniently ignoring the reality of the situation. What we’re discovering is not just poor accounting, it is abuse, negligence and likely corruption. And let us be honest, these patterns didn’t develop overnight. They were tolerated, protected, and in some cases, fueled for the financial and political benefit of a select few.”
She said there is likely corruption, fraud and unethical behavior that occurred within the agency. Friesen said in the last week she learned that an unnamed member of the agency’s internal finance staff “intentionally withheld” information and has since resigned.
She also said Leonard’s contract “expires” this week and he no longer serves in the interim CFO role. The agency launched a search for a permanent chief finance officer months after the former CFO resigned and a day after lawmakers questioned Leonard’s qualifications when he couldn’t answer basic budget questions.
Leonard was not at Monday’s hearing. Instead Friesen brought Mike Rupke, who said he started working in the agency’s “operational excellence division” 35 days ago.
Rupke said he’s skeptical of “every bucket” of the agency’s finances, but admitted he was still getting himself up-to-speed on the situation at hand and only recently gained full access to the agency’s human resource management system.
When pressed by lawmakers, mental health officials struggled to pin down the exact personnel costs per pay period, noting they range from $6 million to $6.2 million, depending on contract costs.
Friesen asked for help from the Legislature’s fiscal staff to find consensus on accurate numbers for what the agency needs as a supplemental appropriation and for its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Lawmakers said they need to be able to put together a budget by the Legislature’s deadline.
Rosino joined the committee as co-chair Monday and said it is the Legislature’s responsibility to appropriate dollars to state agencies, but not to figure out agency budgets.
“I’m a little bit angry about today. I thought we were going to have some resolution, and it doesn’t seem like we do,” Rosino said. “It seems like we’re still up in the air, and that’s why we’re saying the House and the Senate will come together to take care of what we need to but after that, we are going to have to drill down these numbers deeper, and we are running out of time. The clock is ticking.”
He and Rep. Mark Lawson, R-Sapulpa, chair of the committee, said the Legislature will meet its required deadline to pass a budget with the best information available to lawmakers.
Lawson said the Legislature and mental health department would be in a “very different position” if Friesen and agency staff had been more forthcoming about this uncertainty from the beginning. But he and Rosino said the Legislature will make sure state employees are taken care of.
“Numbers can change, and they can change quickly, and what hangs in the balance is certainty,” Lawson said. “And in this case, when it comes to payroll, it’s our state employees … $23 million, that’s a lot of money, it’s a lot of taxpayer money. So for that to be lobbed about left and right, that is uncertainty for us, it’s uncertainty for the employees there. I’m certainly not happy about it.”
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