LAWTON TIF
LAWTON - City officials recently revealed a plan designed to innovate and sustain one established business that could also attract new non-retail entities to Lawton. If approved, along with the 10-year window to begin construction in the designated areas, the proposed 25-year TIF, or STEDI plan (Skills Training, Education, Development and Investment) will fund infrastructure projects and create incentives to attract companies to Lawton.
To finance improvements in blighted or underdeveloped areas, TIFs (Tax Increment Financing) allow municipalities to capture future increases in the defined areas’ property taxes over a specified length of time. Of the 13 proposed TIF districts listed in the STEDI plan, District No. 3 is designated for the expansion of Lawton’s Republic Paperboard. Celebrating its twentieth year in Lawton this month, Republic currently employs about 160 men and women at its 70-acre facility. But with the decrease of available paper needed to make traditional wallboard, the company has asked the City to help fund its expansion which will house new clay coating processes.
With the current trend, “by 2025, [Republic] will be using 75% of all the white [paper] in North America. And I’m not the only papermill using it,” said Republic Paperboard President Ray Howard during a phone interview. “Republic will make a capital investment of over $94 million in real and personal property; and add 20 new, permanent high-quality jobs,” the STEDI project plan states. Howard added that the salary for the new positions averages out to about $107,000 annually.
“In our case, if we don’t get the TIF, I’m not able to put in the coater,” Howard stated. “Then, at some point, we run the risk of shutting down the whole plant. That’s 150 high-paying jobs.” By providing “upfront financing and construction of public infrastructure and public improvements” the STEDI plan looks to gain “new non-retail development, hundreds of new jobs and an expanded job base and several hundred million dollars of new private investment” for the Lawton area. But the plan has met some contention.
While the STEDI plan’s proposed increment districts lie within the Lawton city limits, some are also within the boundaries of the Cache School District. Cache Superintendent Chad Hance and others are concerned that with an increasing student body, the schools may not benefit from any anticipated growth in the TIF districts for up to 35 years. Over the past 24 years, the residents of Cache have invested more than $81.8 million to support our schools, stated Hance. If “all the land that is captured as a TIF district – meaning anything that comes in on that property – and that property gets improved, those taxes would be captured. We would not receive any benefit from that,” he added.
Along with County Commissioner Alvin Cargill, Hance is proposing a 75/25 split option to support industrial development. “Seventy-five percent of the increment would go to pay for the infrastructure improvements; 25 percent would go to the affected agencies: the tech center and schools, health department and county," Hance said. Once the review committee comes out with any kind of action or -- whether it be a recommendation to move on with the plan or a recommendation to not move on with the plan, or even a 5-5 vote, that action them becomes the recommendation to the city council,” said Hance. However, “if the review committee came out with a recommendation not to move forward with this plan, the city council can override that with a supermajority vote.”
Obviously, we want to help them,” said Hance. “But we want to make sure the process is done right, and we don’t get locked into something that will hinder us for 25 to 35 years.”