The new bill proposes returning the Homeland Security Agency to the Department of Public Safety, an effort that stems from a shift in focus at the federal level.
If passed, the bill would move the agency from the Oklahoma Emergency Management Agency to the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, and the agency's director, Tim Tipton, who would also serve as homeland security adviser, would be appointed in September 2023. He has held this position since being appointed by the Governor in . . Kevin Stitt.
The bill's author, Sen. Ronnie Paxton (R-Tuttle), said emergency management focuses on storms, natural disasters and response, while public safety deals with statewide threats. , said it belongs to the Department of Homeland Security.
“Having it there speeds up our response time, so if there's an issue at the school, if Homeland Security puts it there, all the different pieces can be installed faster,” Paxton said. he said. “It works much, much better.”
The bill would move the Department of Homeland Security back into its original role within the Department of Public Safety. Director Rohit Rai, who was promoted to director in January 2024 and has been with the agency since 2009, said that when the Oklahoma Homeland Security Act was first passed in 2004, the agency was an independent agency under the Department of Public Safety. He said there was. Because the funding comes from a federal grant, Public Safety has been able to help with human resources, fundraising, legal services and other services that the agency can't handle, Lai said.
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The Department of Homeland Security was transferred to the Division of Emergency Management under a 2020 executive order by Gov. Stitt unrelated to the pandemic, Press Secretary Kelly Kaine said. The executive order was signed into law in 2022 after Paxton and Rep. Ronnie Sims (R-Tulsa) authored the bill.
Rye said it made sense at the time, as the federal Department of Homeland Security's focus shifted to exchanging communications and responding to incidents.
Now that the federal department's focus has shifted to election security, domestic violence, extremism and mass shooting preparedness, it makes more sense for the Oklahoma state agency to return to the public safety department, he said. .
Tipton said aligning the Department of Homeland Security and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol will help maximize time and efficiency, department funding, taxpayer funds and grant funding.
He said the bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security to improve school safety, and that work is already underway. Tipton said the state's goal is to have the same response plan on all 5,000 school campuses. He said all levels of law enforcement are using the training program developed by Louisiana State University, and about 62% of state employees have been trained to date.
“Our prediction is that by the end of this year, we will be one of the first states in the nation to train all police officers on the same response methods,” he said.
