Group Divided On Worker's Comp Privatization

TIM TALLEY

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A legislative task force recommended Thursday that Oklahoma's workers' compensation agency be privatized, but it was divided on how to achieve that.

Following months of study, the Task Force on the Privatization of CompSource Oklahoma drafted a list of recommendations for the future of the agency that include mutualizing it, meaning it would be owned by its policyholders, or selling it outright.

Legislation that would authorize the state to sell the agency would likely result in a lawsuit challenging the state's ownership of its assets, said Rep. Dan Sullivan, R-Tulsa, co-chairman of the task force.

Officials familiar with Oklahoma's worker's compensation system have told task force members that the state Supreme Court has never clarified whether the assets of CompSource — created by the Legislature in 1933 as the State Insurance Fund — are owned by the state or its policyholders.

"We should first determine who is the owner," Sullivan said. Officials of a Chandler-based insurance company said last month that the state could raise between $150 million and $200 million if it sold the agency to the highest private bidder.