Oklahoma regulators to meet Thursday

 

Oklahoma Corporation Commissioners will meet Thursday. Below is the listed agenda.

1:30 p.m. Thursday, June 13, 2024

Place: Concourse Theater, Suite C50, Will Rogers Memorial
Office Building, 2401 North Lincoln Boulevard,

The Concourse Theater is located in the tunnel between the
Will Rogers Memorial Office Building and the Sequoyah
Memorial Office Building in the Capitol Complex

Purpose: Conducting of daily business enumerated in the items below

Posting Division: Chairman J. Todd Hiett

AGENDA
Item Topic

I A. Call to order

B. Announcement concerning public notice
C. Determination of quorum

II Recognition of the 2023-2024 Leadership OCC graduates

III Consideration of proposed or potential orders in cases on attached 24-hour signing agenda docket. The Commission may discuss and consider alterations, revisions, or amendments to the proposed or potential orders. (Votes may be taken on individual
cases on the 24-hour signing agenda docket as a whole, or both by individual cases and the remaining docket.)

IV Submitted by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony:
Discussion of the Oklahoma Universal Service Fund (“OUSF”), including the history, public policy, overview of the program, status, trends, funding, collections and disbursements, the connections-based assessment factor, accounting and auditing,
information technology systems related to the fund, and third-party administrators

V Submitted by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony:
Continued discussion, questions, and possible hearing regarding Commission (“OCC”) budget, hiring, contracting, competitive bidding, sole sourcing, procurement,

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Submitted by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony continued: purchasing, payments, and other expenditures, past, present and future, especially as may be related to issues raised in the April 23, 2024 State of Oklahoma Single Audit Report
For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2022 prepared by Office of the State Auditor and Inspector (“SAI”).

Repeated from the Regular Meeting Agenda for Thursday, May 30, 2024, Item VII:
On May 9, 2024, the director of administration identified the Ground Water Protection Council as a recipient of a sole source contract. Since he became OCC director of administration, has the OCC engaged any other hires or vendors or incurred any other expenditures under sole source contracts? If so, please explain in detail.

On May 30, 2024 during the Item VII discussion, the director of administration stated: “Anything we don’t have today, of course you know we’ll get it for you.”

Continued discussion, questions and possible hearing regarding budget, hiring, contracting, competitive bidding, sole sourcing, procurement, purchasing, payments, and other expenditures, past, present and future, especially as may be related to planning,
development, maintenance and status of information technology, including IMS, TIMS, PIMS, OGIMS, ECF, MOEA, Oracle and other agency systems.

On May 14, 2024, during the discussion under Item IV, the director of administration said: “… IMS began under Mr. Rhodes, which was years ago, the project that is continuing to this day and not quite complete.”

Later he also said: “… the [IMS] contracts that we have now are just continuing those contracts to keep that system in development which is about to wrap.”

On August 11, 2022, then-Interim Director of Administration Brandy Wreath reported the fiscal year budget included “a half-million for getting out of Oracle. We’re the last agency basically left on Oracle. So the sooner we get off that, the better for
everybody. So that’s a half-million this year.”

On May 30, 2024, Commissioner Anthony asked about “the big picture evolution of I.T. for the agency. … We had an old system called Oracle. Mostly that’s history, is that correct?” Director of Administration Brandy Wreath responded: “We actually still have it [Oracle] for quite a bit of systems.”

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Submitted by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony continued:  On April 21, 2022, then-Director of Administration Tim Rhodes reported on the OCC’s enterprise IMS development status. His report identified:

Phase 1 – Financial (completed under budget)
Planning – April – Oct. 2018

Development – Nov. 2018 – July 2020 (deployment)

Phase 2 – Electronic Filing (ECF) (completed under budget)
Planning – Nov. 2018 – July 2019

Development – Aug. 2019 – March 2022 (deployment)

Phase 3 – Oil and Gas IMS (OGIMS) (on time; on budget)
Planning – July 2019 – Feb. 2021

Development – (in process) May 2021 – ; planned go live in May 2023.
Phase 3.1 – Surety (waiting on Phase 3)
Phase 4 – Transportation TIMS (on budget)
Hybrid Planning – underway in two parts (Part 1: credit card/ACH; Part 2: ecitations); partially completed

Development – pending (ongoing discussions between OMES and OCC’s contractor); target completion early January 2023.
Phase 4.1 – IFTA/IRP
Planning – underway; scheduled to be completed in Jan. 2023;
Development – pending (ongoing discussions between OMES and OCC’s contractor)

Phase 5 – Public Utility Division

Planning – Jan. 2021 – Jan. 2022 (completed under budget)
Development – pending (ongoing discussions between OMES and OCC’s contractor); projected to go live in early 2024

In an April 21, 2022 exchange during the discussion under Item IV, the following was said: Commissioner Murphy: Was My Consulting anticipated to do all five phases?
Administrator Rhodes: Yes, Commissioner.…
Administrator Rhodes: I think the good component of this is the platforms – the I.T., the computer language – that these have been built on, are the most modern, up-to-date platforms. That was done, obviously, to be the most modern and up-to-date, but it also creates a larger pool of trained

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Submitted by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony continued: individuals in that field who have the ability to come in and work on those platforms. Unlike – I’ll go back to the recesses of my history – something like COBOL or a mainframe computer system in a language that has become obsolete. … We also have our planning documents which very carefully explain the needs and how to get from A to B. That’s our map to address our business needs in a particular division or department. …

Will there be a learning curve for anyone new coming in? Sure. There will be. All of those, however, put us in good position to shorten any transition to new personnel.

Commissioner Murphy: Hopefully something can be worked out because this is less than optimal for us. I think those My Consulting people are used to all of our personnel, used to learning more of what we do and continuing to build on it, and I think maybe the language is all the same, but understanding what this agency does will not be the same. And so, I think that would be probably the biggest learning curve. I’m still hopeful they can get it worked out, because we’ve relied on My Consulting for a
lot of stuff, and it seems like they work well with our staff.

Administrator Rhodes: I agree completely.

On October 12, 2022, Chief Financial Officer Holly George updated the commissioners that the discussions between OMES and OCC’s contractor (My Consulting) had concluded, and IMS Phase 3 (Oil and Gas) and Phase 4 (Transportation) were in active
development.

On May 30, 2024, during the discussion under Item VII, the director of administration (formerly the director of the Public Utility Division) told the commissioners: “What we’re talking about for an RFP is going from a development contract, where we’re developing under the parameters laid out by Mr. Rhodes and Stacy [Bonner] and others however many years ago – and I
have to say that because I was not involved. PUD did not have a core function. Our work with IMS took about a week. Ours was pretty simple. I didn’t live it like everyone else. – But those standards and what was needed started years ago, and all those deliverables have been met.”

In another May 30, 2024 exchange during the discussion under Item VII, the following  was said:
Commissioner Anthony: Are all Divisions involved in IMS?
Administrator Wreath: All Divisions are involved in IMS, yes.
Commissioner Anthony: How about Public Utilities?

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The Commission may take up the above items of business in a different sequence than that listed. The meeting is open to the public. This notice was posted prominently and publicly at the principal offices of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission at the Will Rogers Memorial Office Building, 2401 North Lincoln
Boulevard, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73105 at 10:30 a.m.,  Tuesday, June 11, 2024.

Submitted by Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony continued: Administrator Wreath: All their financial transactions and core dockets go through IMS.
Anthony: How about the full scope of activities of PUD?
Administrator Wreath: All their financial transactions – anything they do where they’re collecting monies – and any court case dockets run through Garey’s portion of ECF. They don’t have other transactions like tickets or fees and stuff the other divisions do.
Commissioner Anthony: There are some utilities – in particular, telecom – there’s reports submitted. How is that done?
Administrator Wreath: Those are separate.
Commissioner Anthony: That’s done electronically these days, right?
Administrator Wreath: Those are done electronically, but not through the IMS system.
Commissioner Anthony: What’s the name of that system?
Administrator Wreath: Oracle

Discussion, questions and possible hearing regarding PUD Fee Assessment, including, but not limited to, data request, data response, invoicing and payment processes, procedures and systems

VI New business

A. Any matter not known about and which could not have been reasonably foreseen 24 hours before the meeting

B. Possible vote(s) on matters of new business