OCP News - June 20, 2009
Sunday, 21 June 2009 06:47 | 
Another milestone has been reached in the life of OCP. Your association received official notification June 18th that we are now approved by the IRS as a 501c5 tax-exempt association. The best part is the IRS made it effective the date we filed which was May 5, 2008! I know many people expressed they would sign up when we received this. Let folks know about this and find someone to sign up. We are so close and this may be the catalyst that gets us over the top.
Good day and how’s your place in Oklahoma today? Oklahoma Corrections Professionals’ is getting brighter each and every day. If you haven’t heard OCP has a new, more professional website which has more information than the old site with updates and features still being added. You can find us at www.o-c-p.org and if you’ll take the time to register and sign-in you’ll have the ability to leave comments on the articles listed throughout the site.
You’ll also notice on the left side of the home page two places dedicated to introducing you to all of those involved in getting this association up and going including the beginnings of an initial, temporary board that will guide the association through the first months of payroll deduction.
If you’ve been wondering what has happened to the countdown to 2,000 or you’ve been one of those hearing OCP has stopped then let us explain. About three months ago OCP recognized a problem. In the first ten months of recruiting there had been a lot of folks who had signed up but since left the department. That discrepancy amounted to nearly 120! We didn’t want to lower the numbers by that amount since that would be a blow to moral and excitement in having our own association. OCP instead has continued recruiting and only reporting some of the new applications while backfilling to correct the deficiency.
As of June 4th we have corrected that deficiency and are now moving on to get these last 148!
Legislatively speaking OCP was more successful than we could have imagined since we’ve had no money and no PAC fund. OCP’s Volunteer Legislative Liaison and DOC retiree, Bob Zapffe, kept busy walking the halls of the capital, visiting legislators and attending key sub-committee meetings.
OCP’s intent and membership levels are known to many of our state’s law-makers. Beyond that we would like to bring to your attention something very interesting. Most state agencies this session received reductions from last year’s budget to include all public safety agencies except one. Now in most, if not all, years past that one agency would have been the Department of Public Safety. Not this year though. DPS was reduced by $4 million and the Department of Corrections was not cut. Although it was a standstill budget the fact that it wasn’t cut is amazing!
It is sad to report however that the Pardon and Parole Board’s budget was cut by about $54,000. OCP has asked for our PPB board representative to set up a meeting with the PPB leadership so we can talk about what OCP can do to help.
In the meantime, ask someone who’s not already a member to sign up. You first 2,000 members are the founding members of this association and will be remembered as such. Without you this will never become a reality.
Remember also that this is OF us, BY us and FOR us. It’s time for us to take pride in something we can call our own.
Last Updated (Sunday, 05 July 2009 11:27)