The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 3

THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN OKLAHOMA SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 2002 3-A State employee group recommends pay raises Oklahoma's Internet Resource By John Greiner Capitol Bureau A state public employee group Friday proposed a $1,350 across-the-board pay raise for the state's more than 36,000 employees. The raise would cost between $50 million and $60 million, and would be the first for state employees since 2000, said Gary Jones, executive director of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association. The cost to the state would include the salaries plus the increases in the state's share of contributions to each employee's retirement. Jones said the raise, which is part of the organization's legislative agenda, would help stem the job turnover rate in state government. The annual turnover rate at adult protective services is 33.3 percent, Jones said.

Other state jobs with high employee turnover are child welfare specialists, 31.2 percent; child support specialists, 44.4 percent; correctional security officers, 44.9 percent; juvenile specialists, 43.8; and jobs involving direct care in state veterans hospitals and mental health centers, 53.8 percent. Jones said public safety, transportation, protection of public health and natural resources, human services and programs for the disabled are essential to continued development of Oklahoma's economy and protecting the heart of society. "These critical services can only be delivered to Oklahoma's citizens by a qualified, experienced work force," Jones said. "Just today, there are disturbing press reports about the increasing abuse of our elderly population. Cases investigated by the Department of Human Service's Adult Protective Services jumped 11 percent in the past year." Jones said the state employees' association realizes revenue shortfalls will make conducting the state's business more challenging.

"But we must continue to advance Oklahoma's economic strategies and improve conditions for our citizens. In addition to providing a safety net for families caught in the economic downturn, state services provide a critical infrastructure for the future prosperity of our state," Jones said. The association also recommended a 5 percent cost-of-living increase for state retirees and a hike in the health insurance subsidy for Medicare-eligible retired state employees to $225 per month per retiree. The health insurance subsidy currently is $105 a month. The money for the 5 percent cost-of-living increase and the health insurance subsidy would come from the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System, Jones said.

This would not affect the financial condition of the retirement fund, he said. SHOE gal Iomnston Murphy DNA test upholds man's conviction, prosecutor says Xortliu4vMall 7557112 OpenTuea-Sat 10 6 (Closed Sun Man) found near the three bodies tested positive for Type A blood. McCarty, then 20, was convicted in the 1982 murder of Pamela Kaye Willis, 18. Willis was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death at her Oklahoma City home. Staff writer Diane Plumberg Clay can be reached by e-mail at dplumberg igOklahoman.com or by phone at NEW ITEMS ARE ALWAYS ARRIVING AT SAVE 50-80 OFF RETAIL ON EVERYTHING Lennox Furnace By Diane Plumberg Clay Capitol Bureau The first of three DNA tests from cases that included testimony from former Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist found victims' blood on the convicted killer's pants, Attorney General Drew Edmond-son said Friday.

Edmondson said the test, completed Thursday, showed Type blood was found on the pants worn by John Michael Hooker the day his common-law wife, Sylvia Stokes, 28, and her mother, Drucilla Morgan, 53, were stabbed to death in Stokes' Oklahoma City apartment. Hooker's blood type is O. The victims' had Type blood. "The DNA test results in the Hooker case remove any doubt that he was rightly convicted of two brutal murders," Edmondson said. Hooker's case is on appeal to the 10th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals. Edmondson's office and the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System submitted the bloodstained pants to the DNA Reference Lab in San Antonio as part of an agreement to recheck evidence from a few death row cases in which Gilchrist provided significant testimony. Gilchrist was fired last year after officials said she performed shoddy work in several cases, including one that led to the release of a man wrongly jailed for 15 years for rape. The attorney general's office and indigent defense attorneys plan to test evidence from hundreds of other cases in which Gilchrist testified, including cases in which the convicted perpetrator is not on death row. The two remaining death row cases in which DNA tests are to be performed are for Michael Edward Hooper and Curtis Edward McCarty.

Hooper, then 21, was convicted in the 1993 killing of his girlfriend Cynthia Jarman, 19, and her two children, Tonya, 5, and Timmy, 3. Gilchrist testified that leaves, grass and wood PLUMBING Oy UP HEATING AIR CONDITIONING IfTl mt' Bill I Save up to s250 ystvrepedic Sealy Posturepedic Everyday Value! Queen, 2-piece set $299 Sealy "Savoie" Twin, each piece $119 Full, each piece $149 King, 3-piece set $499 with STAY JRUE TECHNOLOGY Queen, 2-piece set $399 Orig. $499 Sealy "Bandera" PLUSH Size Orig. Now Twin, 2-piece set $358 $299 Full, 2-piece set $458 $379 King, 3-piece set $699 $599 Queen, 2-piece set $549 Orig. $699 Sealy "Trends" PT, FIRM OR PLUSH Size Orig.

Now Twin, 2-piece set $549 $449 Full, 2-piece set $649 $549 King, 3-piece set $999 $849 Queen, 2-piece set $749 Orig. $999 Sealy "Chestnut" PILLOWTOP Size Orig. Now Twin, 2-piece set $799 $599 Full, 2-piece set $949 $749 King, 3-piece set $1299 $1049 Queen, 2-piece set $649 Orig. $799 Sealy "Crestline" PILLOWTOP Size Orig. Now Twin, 2-piece set $649 $549 Full, 2-piece set $749 $649 King, 3-piece set $1099 $949 Men's clothier dies in city at age 81 Nationally recognized specialty clothing store founder John Loran Ooley II died Thursday in Oklahoma City.

He was 81. After attending school in his native Shattuck, Ooley went to Oklahoma where he earned a business degree. His college education was interrupted by his four-year service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He married Margaret Ann Reiff in Stillwater in 1954 and 10 years later, the two founded Mr.

Ooley's, which sells high-quality menswear. The store first opened in Northpark Mall and moved to Penn Square Mall in 1995. Esquire magazine named the store to its 2001 list of the nation's top 100 menswear specialty stores. Services for Ooley will be at 10 a.m. Monday at New Covenant Christian Church with burial in Rose Hill Burial Park.

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