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Tulsa Elected Officials to Lobby Lawmakers on Municipal Funding

Matt Trotter
/
KWGS

Elected officials from the City of Tulsa plan to lobby state lawmakers during the upcoming session about allowing cities more sources of funding than sales tax revenue.

City Councilor Kara Joy McKee said the council’s consensus is legislators need a nudge.

"We all agreed that we need to be going up there to the capitol to talk to our counterparts at the state level. So, I think there’ll be a bus to the capitol — or several — this coming spring, and maybe we’ll bring some constituents along as well," McKee said.

McKee said state officials seem open to broadening the local funding mix, but an exact solution hasn’t been settled on yet.

"If we use something like property tax, we need to be careful about those who are on fixed incomes. There’s some finessing to be done," McKee said.

City Councilor Lori Decter Wright said a public safety district proposed last year could work. It would allow property taxes to go toward police and fire departments, keeping their funding steadier in a downturn.

"If we can get an overlay, that protects those jobs, that keeps those employees from being furloughed, it also frees up some funding so that we can be more aggressive when we’re trying to address other city services," Decter Wright said.

While 17 states limit city governments to one source of funding, Oklahoma is the only one that limits cities to sales tax.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.