Employee drug testing subject of Oklahoma Senate bill

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 3, 2006 by Janice Francis-Smith

Businesses would be able to conduct employee drug tests using saliva, urine and hair samples if the current version of Senate Bill 1466 is successful. However, the measure appears to be headed for a joint House/Senate conference committee where more changes may be made to the legislation.

SB 1466, by state Sen. Randy Bass, D-Lawton, would require the results of drug and alcohol tests administered on-site at a business - even tests that have been cleared by the federal Food and Drug Administration or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - to be confirmed by a licensed drug and alcohol testing facility.

Bass had authored a bill last year to accomplish much the same purpose, but another bill signed after his legislation inadvertently thwarted the bill's intent.

Kevin Pipes, chief of staff for the Oklahoma Health Department, said last year's legislative change allowed on-site testing that would not have to be confirmed by a licensed facility, in conflict with the national standard for workplace drug testing.

The national standard is to have those tests be confirmed by certified facilities and not the employer, said Pipes.

Bass said his intent goes further than certification, however. Bass wants to see the tests administered by a licensed facility, not just confirmed after the fact.

I want to get tested in a place where I know I'm going to be OK, Bass said. We're just trying to make it safer for the employee as well as the employer.

Some businesses had objected to the plan at first because they believed it would cost them more for the licensed facility to come on-site and administer the tests, said Bass.

They think it costs more money because the testing company comes out, but it doesn't, said Bass. We've talked to them (licensed testing facilities) about that, and they don't charge more. But if they have 10 or 15 people, they test them all.

Florida Drug Screening Inc., based in Palm Bay, Fla., has a licensed drug testing facility in Bass' hometown of Lawton. The company has thousands of collection sites located all over the country.

Mike Seney, vice president of operations for The State Chamber, said the business organization is only interested in the part of the bill that would allow for testing of saliva.

Forty-seven other states allow for saliva tests; we do not, Seney said. In Oklahoma, now we can test urine and hair follicles. This would allow for a swab test in the mouth. We think this would be less invasive and easier to monitor.

The original bill did not mention anything about the saliva test, said Bass, but he doesn't object to the change.

I don't think they care if it's swab testing, as long as it's a qualified person and a proper collection procedure for the samples, and then they keep the proper records for testing procedures, Bass said.

Bass said also wants the legislation to require the Oklahoma Health Department to be notified of the results of the tests so that the agency can keep accurate statistics on what drugs are being used in Oklahoma communities.

Today, the Health Department's role is to inspect the licensed drug and alcohol testing facilities throughout the state, said Pipes. A fiscal analysis of SB 1466 noted that there were 99 licensed workplace drug and alcohol testing facilities in the state in 2005, which paid an annual license fee of $150 each. While the licensing fee brought in $14,850 for the year, the cost of conducting routine licensure inspections was about $3,000 per site, totaling an expenditure of $48,000.

The House fiscal impact report for SB 1466 estimated that the measure would require licensure of another 25 sites with an annual net impact of more than $71,000.

This program routinely operates at a deficit of about $33,150, reads the report. The Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing program has been underfunded since its inception because the cost of licensing does not generate sufficient revenue to cover the cost of inspecting and regulating these facilities and programs.

On the other hand, the report continues, oversight of 'on-site' testing helps to ensure accurate and reliable test results are available to employers who are often making critical and life- changing employment decisions based on the results of these screening tests.

Pipes said there are five or six other licensure programs operated by the Health Department where revenue from the licensure fees fall way short of the cost of running the program.

We get through that by cross-training employees and doing things like that, Pipes said. We've presented it to the Legislature before. Basically, we do a lot of cost sharing across lines.

The department doesn't do as timely inspections as they might like due to funding issues, he said.