Former Corporation Commissioner Lands $250,000 State Job

PatricedouglasAs the old Frank Sinatra song goes, “Nice work if you can get it, you can get it if you try.”

It’s what some state legislators are saying about the $250,000 job just landed by former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Patrice Douglas. She was named the new Chief Executive Officer of the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

“Her experience in business, banking, community service and building partnerships across the state will be a valuable asset as we work together to build a brighter, healthier more prosperous future for Oklahoma,” said Jim Gebhart, chair of the TSET Board of Directors.

Douglas, a Republican, was named by Gov. Mary Fallin to replace Commissioner Jeff Cloud in 2011 and she won election in 2012 without opposition to serve the rest of Cloud’s term. two years later, she made a run for the 5th district U.S. House seat that was eventually won by Steve Russell.

In announcing her run for Congress, Douglas ran into opposition from some critics who weren’t happy about her move on the Commission to reduce the number of meeting times so she could run her congressional campaign.

“I have made a little announcement and I am not going to be spending all of my additional time at the Commission. I am going to be doing all the work that is assigned to me, but also conducting a campaign for Congress,” said Douglas in February of 2014.

The $250,000 salary she’ll draw as director of TSET angered State rep. Steve Kouplen (D-Beggs).

“I don’t think any state official is worth a quarter of a million dollars a year,” he declared in a statement this week. “And I find it hard to believe that the TSET board wouldn’t have had plenty of qualified applicants for the job at $120,000.”

He called the salary “outrageous.”

“Where’s the transparency that Oklahoma Republicans are so fond of talking about?” asked the Democratic lawmaker. The salary he said “certainly looks bad, from a public relations standpoint, after the Republican-controlled legislature has presided over three consecutive years of budget cuts that totaled $2 billion.”