LAWTON – In an election that attracted relatively little interest, Comanche County voters opted Tuesday to extend the county sales tax for 10 years and to shift a portion of its proceeds from industrial development to operation of the county jail.
Final, unofficial results showed the proposal was supported by 1,730 voters (59.05%) and opposed by 1,271 others (40.95%). The 3,001 voters constituted 5% of the “little over 60,000 eligible voters” in the county, according to Election Board Secretary Amy Sims.
The voters “expressed their opinions,” Western District Comanche County Commissioner Alvin Cargill said Tuesday night. The Board of County Commissioners “put our information out there, and the opponents put their information out there.”
The decision to shift a portion of the county sales tax proceeds from the Comanche County Industrial Authority to the Comanche County Detention Center “was something that the county didn’t want to do. We hated doing it because industrial development is so important.”
Nevertheless, Cargill said, “We were at a point that we were sinking because of the cost of running the jail. This was the only way we could keep the jail funded and keep it in operation.”
Cargill thanked all the citizens who participated in the election “no matter how they voted.”
The existing three-eighths of a cent tax was approved in an election held June 24, 2014, and expires Dec. 31, 2021, according to a resolution the Board of County Commissioners adopted unanimously on September 8, 2020.
The sales tax produced $5,057,486 for Comanche County from February 2020 through January 2021, Oklahoma Tax Commission ledgers reflect.
JAIL WILL GET 80% OF TAX DOLLARS
The division of funds from the county sales tax will change on January 1, 2022. The county jail now receives two-thirds of the proceeds from the tax, but starting next year it will receive four-fifths of the money.
Currently 66% of the revenue is earmarked for “capital improvements and operational costs” of the Comanche County Detention Center (CCDC).
Of the remaining one-third:
• 48% is earmarked for the Comanche County Industrial Development Authority (CCIDA).
• 17% goes to the Comanche County Fairgrounds.
• 16% is devoted to rural fire protection.
• 9% goes to the Sheriff’s Office.
• 10% is deposited in the county’s Capital Improvement Contingency Fund. Revenue in that fund is used for improvements or “any county need, basically, such as repairs to a water heater,” County Clerk Carrie Tubbs said. However, she added, the allocation produces such a small amount that the county commissioners “try to let that fund build up.”
The resolution the commissioners adopted last September will allocate more of the tax proceeds for the jail and less for job creation.
• 80% is earmarked for operation of the detention center.
CCDC expenses totaled $3.83 million in Fiscal Year 2018-19 (pre-coronavirus). Those bills included facilities maintenance, inmate expenses (bedding, hygiene items and uniforms), workers’ compensation and liability insurance, meals, medical expenses, salaries and wages, staff expenses (drug testing, training, staff uniforms, travel, and staff supplies), and utilities.
Of the remaining 20% of the sales tax revenue:
• 27% is for capital improvements and operational
costs of the Comanche County Fairgrounds.
• 26% is allocated for capital improvements and operational costs of volunteer fire departments in Comanche County, to help finance rural fire protection.
• 17% is to be deposited in the county’s Capital Improvement Contingency Fund.
• 15% is devoted to “industrial and economic development efforts” of the Comanche County Industrial Development Authority.
• 15% is to help pay operational expenses of the county Sheriff’s Office.
The commissioners asserted in the resolution that “it is essential that the term of the sales tax levy should be extended” to Dec. 31, 2031. Central District County Commissioner Johnny Owens said the county sales tax “is a must” because it benefits every resident of Comanche County.
DETENTION CENTER FOCUS OF DEBATE
The primary recipient of the proceeds from the county sales tax will continue to be the Comanche County Detention Center, Owens noted. “If we didn’t have that jail, we’d have to send all of our detainees somewhere else.”
Already Comanche County is sending its overflow inmates to a neighboring county. Because of a severe coronavirus outbreak last year, compounded by a long-standing record of inmate crowding, the state Health Department imposed a 95% cap on admissions to the CCDC.
Consequently, although the detention center has a design capacity of a maximum 283 inmates, the CCDC is limited to no more than 269 detainees. The remaining space is reserved for isolating inmates who contract COVID-19 or any other contagious ailment in the future.
Since May 19, 2020, additional Comanche County detainees have been lodged in the Tillman County Law Enforcement Center at Frederick at a cost of $45 each day per inmate.
JJ Francais, mayor-elect of Elgin, emailed Cargill Tuesday night, charging the commissioner with “put[ting] forth a plan that sought to cripple the rural areas of the county solely to fund the detention center” when there are “no current plans to improve the jail or make any real changes other than throwing more money at it.”
Francais, who is the associate publisher of Southwest Ledger, also emailed Owens, asking him whether the CCIDA is “effectively dead, or is there some hope that we can find another revenue source?” Francais asserted that the proposal approved in Tuesday’s election “gutted rural Oklahoma’s chances at economic development solely for a short-term, short-sighted fix for the detention center.”
“If any lesson or message was sent to the community by this election, it was the need for voter education and transparency,” said Alberto Rivas, assistant vice president of City National Bank. “This vote lacked that. It is the duty of government – whether county, city or state – to make sure the citizens are well aware and fully educated before any election. I think that many of us are fighting for transparency and want all of the facts laid out, pro and con. This election was an example of poor execution.”
Chad Hance, superintendent of Cache Public Schools, wrote on Facebook prior to the election that, “Some may have been urged to vote ‘no’ because of the reduction in funds to the CCIDA. The reason for this is the city of Lawton does not want its slush fund for their pet projects cut... For the most part this entity has been important in funding expansions for Goodyear and Silver Linings which are all necessary in our county, but very little has gone to rural Comanche County. Elgin has received zero dollars for any of their growth, while Cache has received some to help boost or entice economic growth...”
But J.P. Richard, chairman of the Comanche County Excise Board, had a different perspective.
“In spite of all the great things the CCIDA has done for us, we cannot escape the reality that the primary purpose of the county sales tax is to fund the jail, an unpleasant but necessary function of county government,” Richard wrote. “Even before the [corona]virus the jail was going negative and only leftover bond money and occasional advances from one of the contingency accounts kept it above water.” The county sales tax is “the only mechanism that is plausible, and we’ll just have to figure another way to fund CCIDA.”