Oklahoma is poised to receive almost $800 million in federal grant funds to expand internet access across the state.

Mike Sanders, executive director of the Oklahoma Broadband Office, said this week that Oklahoma, Montana and Vermont would receive a total of $1.6 billion from the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment – BEAD – program this year.

“This is a game changer,” Sanders said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

On Thursday the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced approval of the state’s Initial Proposal Volume II, which outlined the selection process. Sanders said the Oklahoma Broadband Office has a year from the approval date to complete the process and award funds to eligible internet service providers.

Created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the BEAD program is a $42.45 billion state grant program. The states, U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., received billions in federal funding to deploy or upgrade high-speed internet networks to ensure the public has access to reliable, affordable, high-speed -internet service. 

Sanders said Oklahoma would eventually spend a total of $1.3 billion in federal funds to expand internet access in remote areas. While the $797 million grant was “by far the largest pot,” Sanders said, he added that private funds would supplement that investment.

More: High-speed internet grants of more than $300 million awarded by Oklahoma officials

Sanders said the BEAD program was the largest high-speed internet expansion effort in Oklahoma history.

“We’re going to be changing generations for the better,” he said. “Whether it’s education, whether it’s heath care, whether it’s economic development. This will level the playing field between areas that have had high-speed internet and those who have not.”

Once the expansion is complete, he said, Oklahomans will see the benefits for years to come.

How will the federal money be used to expand broadband in Oklahoma?

Sanders said Oklahoma’s $797.4 million share of the program will be used to fund last-mile connections for unserved and underserved homes and businesses. However, before the award process can begin, the office will administer a challenge process to determine which locations in Oklahoma are eligible for funding.

Under the program, BEAD-eligible entities — the states, territories and the District of Columbia — are required to submit proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for approval. The initial proposal must show how each entity plans to spend their BEAD allocation.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes an earmarked $65 billion investment to expand affordable and reliable high-speed internet access in communities across the United States.

All states submitted their initial proposals last December.  

Opinion: Older Oklahomans need affordable high-speed internet service ― and the skills to use it

One year from initial proposal approval, states must submit a final proposal that details, among other things, the outcome of the selection process and how the state will ensure universal coverage. Oklahoma’s grant was the largest of the three awarded. The two other grants included $668 million allocated to Montana and $228 million to Vermont.

Gina Raimondo, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, said a reliable internet connection was a necessity that enables access to jobs, health care and education.

Sanders said federal approval of the state’s plan was the result of many months of intensive planning and stakeholder engagement.

“We want to ensure we can bridge the digital divide in this state once and for all,” he said. “Our office will continue to ensure this money goes directly to areas that don’t have high-speed internet access.”

A metro family of a stabbing survivor demanded answers from the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office. Last September, a Francis Tuttle student was stabbed in the shoulder. His family said they were never given the chance to speak in court.  

The conviction and sentencing of the man responsible for the incident surprised the victim’s family after they were told the DA’s office would contact them before a sentence was given. They said the call never came. 

“I was trusting the process,” said Khristin Hepner, the mother of Aiden Hepner, a student at Francis Tuttle Technology Center. “We basically have no recourse now. Did not hear from any of [the prosecutors]. Not one word.” 

According to court records, 23-year-old Deshawn Banks was initially charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and possession of a weapon on school property. A judge set Banks’s bond at $500,000 but court records show the bond was later reduced to $20,000. On June 28, Banks pleaded guilty to both charges in exchange for supervised probation. 

“It takes a lot to get over something like this,” Khristin said. “These are things I just can’t wrap my brain around.” 

Ten months have passed since the incident, but for Aiden Hepner, time stands still. 

“I can’t even sleep without having dreams where there’s people with knives around me,” Aiden said. 

Behenna’s office released a statement on Friday saying,

“My office strives to abide by Marsey’s Law, including keeping victims and their families informed as their case goes through the court system. Unfortunately, in this case, the ball was dropped and afterwards, I personally apologized to Ms. Hepner. While I regret this occurred, it will be used as a teaching moment for my budding prosecutors.” 

Aiden has struggled with the pain of that incident physically and mentally, but he said the feeling of being forgotten hit a different nerve.  

“We wouldn’t have to come on here and talk to you about all this if they were just honest with us,” Aiden said. “It damages me, and it hurts me.” 

Hepner’s family still wants to meet with Oklahoma County prosecutors in person to discuss how to prevent this from happening to someone else. OKC has a Victim Services Program available to help victims of crimes. For more information on crime victim rights and resources visit the Oklahoma City Police Department’s website. 

Two of Oklahoma’s top state officials are at an impasse over how to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the state of not providing timely mental health services to people awaiting services in county jail.

The suit was filed in 2023 on behalf of four plaintiffs who were held in county jails for months awaiting court-ordered mental health services known as competency restoration treatment.

A proposed consent decree from Attorney General Gentner Drummond and the plaintiff’s legal team includes calls for more staff and training and are aimed at reducing the wait times for appropriate health care.

It also set aside $4.1 million in the state budget for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to address many of the complaints.

The proposal, however, faced immediate pushback from the governor, who along with a top health department official, said he “did not and will never agree to have Oklahomans foot the bill for a bad legal settlement.”

A hearing for preliminary approval of the consent decree is scheduled for Aug. 15. Depending on the results of that formal step, the proposal would then go before a state review board.

“We have to ask why the AG is forcing a settlement that will result in an immediate win for the plaintiffs’ attorneys at the expense of the Oklahoma taxpayers,” Gov. Kevin Stitt added.

The standstill comes as the Department of Justice continues its own investigation into the state, and Oklahoma City and its police department on their responses to mental health crises. The agency is examining whether these institutions lack community-based mental health services that lead to unnecessary hospitalizations and police involvement.

The federal lawsuit alleges that people in Oklahoma’s jails awaiting a competency restoration evaluation are waiting months if not years in some cases — accusations that Gentner called “indefensible.”

Colleen McCarty, an attorney with Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, said the plan consulted well-known experts in mental health to help monitor and consult on how to rebuild Oklahoma’s systems for addressing mental health evaluations.

“It was a huge win for the state of Oklahoma,” McCarty said of the settlement proposal. “And it’s so disappointing that we can’t just move forward with what everyone agreed on.”

Mental illness and Oklahoma’s judicial system

Before someone charged with a crime can go to trial or enter a plea, the court must confirm they are mentally fit.

In Oklahoma, this means the person must understand the charges and assist their defense. If a defense attorney, judge, or prosecutor doubts the defendant’s competency, they can request an evaluation. Usually, those found incompetent have a traumatic brain injury, developmental disability, or serious mental illness. If declared incompetent, their criminal proceedings are suspended.

The lawsuit claimed that the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, which runs the state’s largest inpatient behavioral health facility, has violated the plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act by not giving them timely and proper mental health treatment.

Paul DeMuro, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, described defendants with mental illnesses as some of the most vulnerable and powerless, adding that when kept in county jails waiting for necessary care, these people are trapped in legal limbo. They cannot go to trial or work out a plea deal while waiting in jail for “restoration.”

DeMuro said the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services is effectively punishing these defendants for their mental illness by failing to provide the care to restore their competency.

“Jails are, by their nature, punitive places,” DeMuro said in a statement. “They are neither designed nor equipped to provide restoration treatment for people with mental illness.”

Ideally, people would be able to receive treatment for their mental health before reaching jail or prison, said Zack Stoycoff, an executive director of Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, a Tulsa-based nonprofit that advocates for mental health investments. But provider shortages affect more than 90 percent of all Oklahomans, he added.

Oklahoma ranks as the third worst state in the country for the percentage of residents who live in a mental health provider shortage area, according to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

“A jail is no place to receive mental health treatment,” Stoycoff said. “In an ideal world we would be treating people in the community, in their homes and in their lives, living healthy and productive lives of recovery. In an ideal world they would not have been in a position where systems would not have failed for so long and so systematically that a crime would occur.”

A recent report by The Frontier and The Marshall Project found that Oklahoma jails using Turn Key Health Clinics, a medical care provider for correctional facilities, saw at least 50 people die in the past decade. Many questions of the company’s practices were raised, including whether operators were providing an appropriate level of care to people with mental illness behind bars.

Across the country, the number of people waiting for a competency restoration evaluation in jails has continued to rise. Based on available national data, an estimated 36,000 people in the early 1970s required competency evaluations after being charged with a crime. By 2020, that number rose to an estimated 94,000.

The number of Oklahomans seeking the evaluations has also skyrocketed in the past 40 years. This leaves the Oklahoma Forensic Center, the state’s lone facility for evaluations and housing for people awaiting criminal trial with a backlog of cases, according to the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a Tulsa-based nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice. More than 900 people in Oklahoma jails across the state received evaluation in 2020, according to state data. That number has continued to rise in the years since.

McCarty of Appleseed said more than 400 people are currently awaiting evaluation, the largest the waitlist has ever been.

The pandemic also caused huge numbers of people to fall out of their mental health routines and stop going to their doctors and therapists, McCarty added, saying those same people might be prosecuted for a crime and in jail now trying to find help.

“People have lost their resources,” she said. “These are people who are pre-trial, they are all presumed innocent and a lot of time they are waiting longer than their sentence would’ve even allowed if they were to take a plea deal.”

What would the proposed settlement do?

Attorney General Gentner Drummond has proposed a five-year consent decree to settle the lawsuit and reform the competency restoration services.

The proposed settlement sets a strict 21-day maximum wait time for detainees to receive competency restoration services. Other key components include:

• Reevaluate defendants waiting to receive court-ordered treatment. A qualified forensic examiner would perform this evaluation.
• Increase the number of inpatient beds dedicated to competency restoration treatment.
• Develop a continuing education program for Oklahoma Forensic Center staff involved in treatment.
• Develop a screening program that expedites the evaluation and placement of defendants into the appropriate care.
• Develop a plan for additional training and staff at the department.

If they sign off, all parties have 90 days to come up with a detailed plan to start implementing changes. This would mean big state expenditures on mental health services, hefty fines for Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services if they fail to meet deadlines, and a cap on plaintiff’s legal fees and court costs at about $742,500.

Drummond argues this is the best way forward.

“If this lawsuit proceeds, there is no doubt the state would be facing significant litigation risk that could cost taxpayers dearly,” he said in a statement. The proposed settlement will “fix a broken system that has been a travesty of justice,” the attorney general added.

Gov. Stitt, along with ODMHSAS commissioner Allie Friesen, said the proposal is not in the state’s best interest — not for taxpayers nor the defendants the department serves.

Friesen, who was appointed by Stitt in January to lead the department, believes she should be given more time to analyze and develop plans to improve competency restoration services in Oklahoma, which she believes is necessary. The class action lawsuit was filed before Friesen became the department’s lead.

“We need more than a week. We need at least nine months to understand what we’re dealing with,” she said in a statement. She also expressed frustration with attorneys being involved in clinical decisions, arguing that this should be left to medical professionals.

But Stitt and Friesen worry about wasting taxpayer money and have pointed out ongoing efforts as progress is being made, such as the construction currently underway to add 80 beds at a facility in Vinita, a town of more than 5,000 people about an hour northeast of Tulsa.

What’s next

McCarty and Appleseed are still hoping Stitt and Drummond can come to terms on a solution. She said the proposed solution was done with care and with the help of mental health experts across the country.

The proposal will have to be passed by a joint resolution while the state Legislature is in session. If the Legislature is not in session, the proposal could be heard by the state Contingency Review Board, made up of appointees from Stitt, the Senate pro tem Greg Treat and the House speaker Charles McCall.

They would all need to sign off for the proposal to move forward.

McCarty said if the proposal is not agreed to, litigation continues, and more people will wait.