Oklahoma County commissioners who have proposed a sales tax to help fund the county’s beleaguered jail project haven’t gotten the ball out of the infield this year after a proposal by District 3 interim Commissioner Paul Foster died for lack of a second during the board’s meeting Wednesday, but something similar may still make its way to voters in 2026.
Foster, who is serving the remainder of former Commissioner Myles Davidson’s term, proposed a half-cent sales tax that would have allocated its revenues for a variety of purposes:
- 45 percent for debt service on construction of the new jail;
- 33 percent for the new jail’s maintenance and operation;
- 14 percent for road and bridge maintenance and reconstruction;
- 3 percent for the sheriff’s office;
- 2.5 percent for jail diversion projects;
- 1 percent for fire and EMS services; and
- 0.5 percent for emergency operations.
“I’ve sat in meetings and listened to people irresponsibly call it the deadliest jail in America,” Foster told fellow commissioners. “I also know about the different sites that were evaluated for the new jail to determine the right location at the lowest possible cost. And I realize the cost of construction has skyrocketed since COVID and continues to go up every year. We’ve all looked at different ways to raise revenue for the construction of the new jail. We’ve waited in hopes of getting some assistance from particular legislation that ultimately failed. Now we’re again at the point where we need to address a sales tax.”
Neither District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan nor District 1 Commissioner Jason Lowe seconded Foster’s proposal. Earlier this year, Lowe’s proposal for a 5/8-cent sales tax failed to receive a second from Maughan and Davidson.
Bond money inadequate to build a new jail
County voters approved a $260 million bond in 2022 for the construction of a new jail. But with current estimates topping $800 million to build a 2,000-bed facility, that amount has proven woefully inadequate, leaving commissioners with few options to bridge the funding gap.
Foster pushed back against what he characterized as media reports and public comments claiming his proposal was actually a jail tax disguised as a public safety tax.
“In my mind, the jail is public safety — it is included in that definition,” Foster told fellow commissioners.
Foster’s proposal called for the sales tax to appear on the Aug. 25 runoff ballot, but statutorily, it’s unclear if that would have been possible. Foster told commissioners it was his understanding that ballot language had to be submitted at least 60 days before an election date. Maughan told Foster he had spoken with legal counsel and was told the deadline was 75 days, which would have required the commissioners to have approved it by June 10.
Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Lisa Enders told commissioners she received the sales tax resolution proposal June 17 and had two business days to review it. Enders said that, in addition to problems with the proposed date, the proposal’s language was too complicated.
“It doesn’t meet eighth-grade reading level,” Enders said. “I could not get it to an eighth-grade reading level. I could only get it to an 11th-grade reading level. It has multiple pieces to this. The resolution language has been adjusted, but we have not had sufficient time to approve it as to legality and form. The DA’s office was not asked to do anything but to review the document. We were not asked to review whether or not there was sufficient time to put it on the ballot. That was one of my questions to Mr. Foster when I talked to him yesterday. He told me he had spoken to somebody and said he had 60 days. I have not been able to confirm whether that is true or not.”
Lowe: ‘That kind of says it all right there’
Lowe, who faces an Aug. 25 runoff battle with challenger Kayla Baker, proposed his own jail-related sales tax in January, but that too died for lack of a second. On Wednesday, Lowe said there were too many unanswered questions about Foster’s proposal to move it forward.
“That kind of says it all right there,” Lowe said in response to Enders’ remarks to BOCC. “We obviously need to further vet this proposal. One commissioner indicates that we’re out of time, and the other says we’re not. (The) District Attorney’s Office says that they have not approved this document as far as the legal form and legal language in it. So, obviously, that’s concerning. And I haven’t met — well, my office hasn’t met — with bond counsel, and we haven’t discussed this matter with the District Attorney’s Office. So with that, I’m going to be a ‘No.'”
Maughan has said throughout this year’s discussions about a sales tax that the county would need a partner to help run a public campaign. Without that, he said, any sales tax proposal is likely to fail. Still, he believes there is a chance a county sales tax proposal could go before voters this year.
“I think that there’s still a chance we can do it in November, it’s just a question of getting the support together,” he said following Wednesday’s meeting. “Now, this would have fumbled that ball, because in order to do it in November, we would have had to have called that election before this election would have been completed. So obviously, that was really going to make a mess out of things.”
