A. The Commission for Rehabilitation Services shall have the powers and duties to:

1. Adopt bylaws and promulgate rules for the regulation of its affairs and the conduct of its business;

2. Formulate policies and adopt rules for the effective administration of the duties of the State Department of Rehabilitation Services;

3. Adopt an official seal;

4. Establish an office;

5. Sue and to be sued, subject to the provisions of The Governmental Tort Claims Act;

6. Make and enter into all contracts necessary or incidental to the performance of its duties and the execution of its powers;

7. Purchase or lease equipment, furniture, materials and supplies, and incur such other expenses as may be necessary to maintain and operate the Commission and the State Department of Rehabilitation Services, or to discharge its duties and responsibilities or to make any of its powers effective;

8. Acquire by purchase, lease, gift, solicitation of gift or by any other manner, and to maintain, use and operate or to contract for the maintenance, use and operation of or lease of any and all property of any kind, real, personal or mixed or any interest therein unless otherwise provided by Section 166.1 et seq. of this title; provided that, all contracts for real property shall be subject to the provisions of Section 63 of this title;

9. Appoint such officers, agents and employees as it deems necessary to operate and maintain the Commission and to prescribe their duties and to fix their compensation;

10. Perform such other acts as shall be necessary for the accomplishment of the purposes of Section 166.1 et seq. of this title; and

11. Serve as trustee for the trust created in subsection B of this section for the benefit of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf.

B. 1. The Commission for Rehabilitation Services is hereby authorized and directed to create a trust into which all real property held by the Commission for the benefit of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf shall be transferred.

2. The property placed in trust:

a.shall be held for the sole benefit of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf,

b.if not needed for use by the schools, may be leased or rented to others and all income received from such leases or rentals shall be payable to the Commission and deposited in the Rehabilitation Services Disbursing Fund for use by the Commission to fulfill the purposes of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf, and

c.may be sold if the commissioners, acting as trustees, determine that the sale is in the best interest of the Oklahoma School for the Blind or the Oklahoma School for the Deaf. The proceeds from the sale of the property shall be held in the trust corpus and shall be invested by the State Treasurer. Income derived from the corpus shall be used by the Commission for the purposes of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf.

3. The corpus of the trust may be disbursed only upon legislative approval.

4. The trust may be dissolved only upon legislative approval.

C. Upon the creation of the trust authorized in subsection B of this section, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services shall provide all necessary assistance to the Department of Rehabilitation Services to identify and transfer all real property held by or for the benefit of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf to the trust.

D. 1. The Commission for Rehabilitation Services may accept and receive any and all gifts, donations, devices, bequests, grants or contracts of any kind for money or property, either real or personal, for the benefit of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf.

2. The Commission is directed, authorized and empowered to hold such funds or property outright or in trust, invest or sell the property and use the principal or interest or proceeds of sale for the benefit of the Oklahoma School for the Blind and the Oklahoma School for the Deaf.

3. The Commission shall utilize its best efforts to comply with the terms of any conditional gift, devise or bequest in fulfillment of the donor's stipulations and provisions of applicable laws. Any real or personal property donated with conditions which are at any time determined to be infeasible to meet or continue may be returned to the donor, or if the donor is no longer living, if a natural person, or no longer a legally organized entity, for organizations, then the property may be sold and the proceeds of the sale deposited in the Commission's general fund or the property may be further donated in kind.

Added by Laws 1993, c. 364, § 5, emerg. eff. June 11, 1993. Amended by Laws 2001, c. 95, § 1, eff. Nov. 1, 2001; Laws 2001, c. 329, § 10, emerg. eff. June 1, 2001; Laws 2004, c. 543, § 3, eff. July 1, 2004; Laws 2012, c. 304, § 838; Laws 2019, c. 280, § 1, eff. Nov. 1, 2019.