Battle Brewing Over Tulsa Tax Revenues, Initiative Petition Begins
Tulsa County, city may battle for sales-tax funds
BY KEVIN CANFIELD & ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writers
Friday, July 26, 2013
The battle over a one-sixth of a cent sales tax got a little rougher Thursday.
Tulsa County officials announced plans to recapture the former 0.167 Four to Fix the County sales tax in a Nov. 12 special election so it can be used to fund a new juvenile justice center and additional pods at the Tulsa Jail.
The announcement comes in the midst of the city of Tulsa’s effort to sell its latest capital improvement package, a $919.9 million list of projects that would be funded in part by the very 0.167 percent tax the county wants to recapture.
The tax is the same one Mayor Dewey Bartlett proposed – and the City Council rejected – using to pay for additional police and fire personnel and more road maintenance crews.
On Thursday, Sheriff Stanley Glanz, joined by County Commissioner Karen Keith and local attorney Campbell Cooke, said he had filed papers with the Tulsa County Clerk’s Office to begin the initiative petition process.