Oklahoma DEQ asks for five staff, details lead-and-copper workload and $16 million parking garage project

Rob Singletary, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, asked the Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Regulatory Services for recurring staff capacity to implement new federal drinking-water rules, and detailed a series of infrastructure and IT projects scheduled for 2025.

Singletary told senators the agency’s top near-term budget ask is five additional full‑time equivalent positions to handle new federal Lead and Copper Rule requirements and related workloads. He told the committee the agency expects a large increase in work from recent EPA rulemaking and that DEQ would seek primacy to implement the rules in Oklahoma rather than letting EPA do so.

Singletary said the EPA ‘‘issued a new lead and copper rule revision’’ and a subsequent set of ‘‘lead and copper rule improvements’’ that create new obligations for public water systems, including service‑line inventories and timelines for replacement. He described roughly 1,500,000 service lines statewide as the population of lines that can be affected and said the new rules reduce the lead action level, add sampling and corrosion‑control requirements, and require public notices for exceedances.

Singletary and Kathy Abisher, the agency’s chief financial officer and director of administrative services, also reviewed 2025 projects and recent appropriations. Singletary said the Legislature provided $16,000,000 for demolition and reconstruction of a downtown DEQ parking garage; demolition has begun and construction is expected to follow after about five months of staged deconstruction. Abisher told the committee the garage funding is one‑time money and separately accounted for in the agency’s budget. The agency also described $10,000,000 appropriations in recent years for the Rural Infrastructure Grant (RIG) program and a $1,000,000 Blue River study established by last session’s legislation.

On the lead‑and‑copper request, Singletary said other states have added staff to respond to the same rulemakings (Texas adding roughly 39 FTEs for similar work; Colorado adding nine) and that DEQ believes five additional FTEs would allow Oklahoma to pursue primacy. A senator asked whether the new positions would be ongoing; Singletary replied the positions are recurring because implementation, technical assistance and compliance tasks will continue for years as systems inventory and replace lead and galvanized service lines. A committee member quoted an agency figure of $404,400 for initial program establishment during questioning; Singletary confirmed the ongoing nature of the workload while noting that demand could decline over many years as lines are replaced.

Singletary also described internal efficiency work: DEQ has an office of continuous improvement and has shortened the time to finalize air‑quality inspection reports by reducing handoffs. He said the agency currently carries about a 5% vacancy rate on roughly 550 FTEs and that budget totals rose steeply because of the one‑time parking garage money and several grant programs.

On information technology and records, Singletary told senators DEQ relies on OMES for email retrieval and open‑records searches; he said a current public‑records extraction of roughly 1,000 emails carried a vendor estimate of approximately $12,150 and that some past searches quoted much higher costs. He and Abisher said they felt OMES customer service had improved but that projected open‑records retrieval costs could grow and should be monitored.

Singletary described other agency projects: replacing an antiquated operator‑certification system that supports almost 14,000 licenses statewide; updating customer and revenue management to accept electronic permit applications; and completing a water‑quality standards program transferred to DEQ in 2023. He said some projects may roll into 2026 depending on contractor schedules.

Committee members asked about parking for staff and the public while the garage is rebuilt. Singletary said DEQ has leased spots at multiple downtown locations and will combine telework and assigned manager days to limit leased‑parking costs; he estimated a full onsite staffing model for the interim would cost “just over $200,000” for an 18‑month period. Senators also pressed the agency on whether its current building (which houses an environmental laboratory) would remain suitable; Singletary said moving a high‑end laboratory would be costly and that prior feasibility reviews found relocation impractical.

The agency detailed Rural Infrastructure Grant program activity: grants of up to $100,000 with a 20% match, 80 approved wastewater projects and 347 approved drinking‑water projects; of $30,000,000 allocated to date, roughly $25,000,000 is encumbered and about $13,000,000 dispersed.

The DEQ presentation closed after further committee questioning on telework policy changes, parking capacity for board meetings and the status of the customer and operator platform replacements. Singletary and Abisher said they would provide follow‑up information if the committee wanted more details on FTE budgets, vacancy breakdowns and open‑records costs.