Facing a projected budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2026, the Lawton City Council authorized measures to reallocate two specific fees and raise one, but rejected a 12% “adjustment” in myriad miscellaneous charges.
In January the estimated shortfall was $40 million, City Manager John Ratliff recalled.
“It’s been a tough budget year,” but the gap in finances has been narrowed to approximately $2 million, Ratliff told the council on April 22. “We have cut all municipal departments; all will be down next year,” he said. “I don’t want to do any layoffs and I don’t want to freeze the staff.”
Finance Director Rebecca Johnson reported that city sales taxes collected in the first nine months of FY2025 and designated for general municipal obligations were lower than budget projections every month.
City sales taxes earmarked for the PROPEL 2019/2040 capital improvement programs totaled $22.69 million during that ninemonth period, and exceeded FY 2025 budget expectations every month but were less than FY 2024 collections in eight of those nine months.
Lawton’s sales tax rate is 4.13%, and 2.125% of that is funneled into a fund for CIP projects, including improvements to streets and bridges, water and sewer lines, and parks.
One area Ratliff focused the council’s attention on was the city code requirement that revenues generated from a capital outlay fee on utility bills must be restricted to acquisition of wheeled or track vehicles.
“At present, we have all the ‘rolling stock’ we need,” the city manager said. “In fact, we’re auctioning off 40 vehicles now.”
Consequently, Ratliff asked the council to implement a temporary moratorium on that mandate. “I’m asking for this fee that’s on water accounts – approximately $8 per month, which generated $2.4 million last year” – to be “repurposed for General Fund operating expenses” for six months, “to enable me to balance the budget,” he said.
“This is only a reallocation of funds,” Ward 4 Councilman George Gill assured his colleagues.
The request was approved, 7-0. MMJ tax diverted from sidewalks to General Fund The council also endorsed a reallocation of sales taxes collected from purchases of medical marijuana products for one year: from July 1 this year to June 30 next year.
In 2019 the City Council earmarked sales tax revenue from medical marijuana retail sales specifically for construction of new sidewalks and repairs to existing walkways. During the past three years “these revenues have averaged approximately $483,000 annually,” Ratliff said.
“We have a budget crunch, so I think we should allow the city manager to move it around for whatever he needs,” Gill said. “This would give him some flexibility and get our budget in better shape.”
The council approved Ratliff’s request to temporarily allow those funds to be diverted from sidewalks to the city’s General Fund “to support broader operational needs.” State-mandated landfill charge To cover a financial shortfall at the sanitary landfill south of town, the council authorized tripling the charge on utility bills for refuse collection from single-family homes, multifamily dwellings, and from business, commercial and industrial customers: from 21 cents to 63 cents per month. That measure also eliminates certain reductions in and exemptions from landfill fees.
For example, other than a per-load gate fee, there has been no charge for dumping up to six loads of solid waste from single-family homes and from multifamily apartment complexes in any calendar year, per active utility account. Free loads are now a thing of the past.
In addition, federally recognized nonprofit organizations that have a primary address within the corporate boundaries of Lawton will no longer be allowed to pay a reduced landfill fee for all solid waste they deliver to the landfill.
“We are not collecting enough money to pay a state-mandated fee” for the landfill, Public Works Director Michael Watrous said. The City of Lawton is required by state law to pay the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) $1.25 per ton of debris deposited in the landfill.
The shortage was nearly $110,000 in just the last two quarters, Watrous indicated. Last year the deficit was about $178,000, according to Gill.
“It’s an expensive endeavor out there,” Ward 8 Councilman Randy Warren said. “We have to buy land and we have to line the landfill cells. We need to at least break even.”
In January this year “we realized that the waste being deposited into the landfill exceeded the fees collected for this purpose,” Watrous said. That triggered a “comprehensive evaluation” of landfill fee calculations and measures intended to “minimize the impact to our citizens in order to cover these mandated costs,” he informed the council.
State statute decrees that owners and operators of landfill disposal sites which receive an average of more than 100 tons of solid waste per operating day must collect a fee of $1.25 per ton.
Lawton’s landfill received 271,670 tons of garbage and other debris in 2023, and 329,896 tons in 2024,Watrous told Southwest Ledger.
The landfill’s per-ton revenue is routed quarterly to the DEQ “solely for the administration and enforcement of the provisions of the Oklahoma Solid Waste Management Act, and for the development of solid waste technical assistance programs, solid waste public environmental education programs and educational curricula, solid waste studies, development of a statewide solid waste plan, solid waste recycling and litter prevention programs, and other environmental improvements.”
12% fee increase spurned in 3-4 vote But the council balked at a proposal that would have raised numerous miscellaneous fees by 12% – even though there would have been no increase to water/sewer bills, stormwater fees, aquatic center pricing, nor to state-mandated fees. The last time the City Council raised Lawton’s utility bills – water, sewer, and solid waste collection/ disposal – was in Fiscal Year 2023, by 15%.
The myriad proposed increases would have been tied to the Consumer Price Index, Ratliff said. Asked by Ward 7 Councilwoman Sherene Williams how the 12% figure was arrived at, Ratliff said, “We didn’t raise the rates in 2022, ’23 or ’24. If we had, those three years factored together came to a little over 12%.” Inflation during that same period “went up 15%,” he said.
Similarly, Ratliff reminded the council that until last year, Republic Paperboard Co.’s rates for water, sewer, and solid waste collection had not been raised for almost 26 years.
The new rates will be phased in over a five-year period and will increase each year until the rates reach “current industrial water rates,” Public Utilities Director Rusty Whisenhunt wrote. Starting with April 1, 2029, rate adjustments will be tied to the South-Central Consumer Price Index based on any change from 12 months earlier. However, the maximum year-over-year increase will be limited to 2%.
Republic had been paying 87 cents per 1,000 gallons of treated water, but it cost the city up to $2.10 per thousand, Ratliff said last year. Republic’s average water usage is 1.3 million to 1.5 million gallons per day, city officials said.
Fort Sill, too, will pay the same rate as Republic Paperboard, “and they are our heaviest water user,” Ratliff told the Ledger.
Council members were troubled by the 12% proposal Councilman Allan Hampton said he has been “wrestling with this issue” because his Ward 5 has many low-income residents. “A $10 fee has a much bigger impact on a family whose household income is $20,000 a year than it does on a family that makes $200,000 a year,” he pointed out.
His constituents “are impacted by just about any increase in fees,” Hampton said.
“I, too, have really struggled with this,” Ward 2 Councilman R.L. Smith said. “I’ve heard from residents and businesses alike about this issue. It concerns me.”
“Not every fee is going to affect every household,” Ward 3 Councilwoman Linda Chapman noted.
“This is what happens when you put things off,” Warren said. “Eventually you have to pay.”
The proposal failed on a 3-4 vote. Smith, Gill, Hampton and Williams, were opposed, while Chapman, Warren, and Ward 6 Councilman Bob Weger voted ‘aye.’ Ward 1 Councilor Mary Ann Hankins, who married Mayor Stan Booker recently, was absent.
Collectively, those fees “would have had a minimal impact, a couple of hundred thousand dollars,” Ratliff told the Ledger on April 23. “We’ll have to find that money somewhere else. I’ll figure it out.”
City officials “will likely have the budget passed by our target date” of June 20, but no later than June 23, Ratliff said recently. The Municipal Budget Act “requires that we pass a balanced budget no later than seven calendar days before the end of the fiscal year” on June 30, he explained.