One has to ask what kind of BS is this...

>>>
Rep. Steve Martin, R-Bartlesville, outlined a plan to take away from several cities -- including Tulsa and suburban communities -- 1 percent of their sales-tax revenue and give it to smaller towns.
<<<

As much as it pain me to say, Mayor McCheese is right on this one...

>>>
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett characterized the idea as the "socialization of sales tax".
<<<


http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=82966

Sales tax sharing proposal pits big cities vs. small towns

by Jeff Packham
The Journal Record
October 24, 2007

OKLAHOMA CITY – A tumbleweed rolls down the street as the wind howls in and around empty buildings in a town once thriving with people and economic activity.

This was an example of what small-town representatives painted for elected officials at the state Capitol on Tuesday as a proposal to redistribute sales tax revenues to help the smaller cities was discussed at length by members of the House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Revenue and Taxation.

Wayne Dunham, mayor of Jay, said what once was a bustling retail economy in his 3,000-population city in the northeast corner of Oklahoma had withered down to a small Wal-Mart store and one other grocery store. He said Saturday mornings used to be a time when the locals were active up and down Main Street spending money on their needs.

“On Saturday morning now in Jay, you could shoot a shotgun down Main Street and not hit a soul,” Dunham said.

Nancy Shipley, city manager for Nowata, said most of those living in her town were now doing their shopping in other cities such as Owasso, Bartlesville, Tulsa, or even Coffeyville, Kan. She said the sales tax base had eroded down to nearly nothing, with most of those dollars going to other communities.

“We don’t have any tax base,” Shipley said. “We need all the help we can get.”

Ed Crone, director of Grand Gateway Authority, said these were just two examples of what reliance on the sales tax for municipalities had turned to in the past several decades. Crone said he had been seeking a change in this area for years, and that there had been 10 cities in the past five years that had realistically discussed “just folding the tents and going home.”

State Rep. Steve Martin, R-Bartlesville, offered a recommendation as part of the interim study proposal to disperse some of the sales tax revenues in the bigger cities to those towns in need. Martin suggested putting the first penny for every dollar collected into a pool and redistributed based on population.

The proposal would help a town such as Achille improve the per-person sales tax from $73 a year to $183 per person. On the other end, Tulsa would lose 8 percent of its sales tax revenues and Oklahoma City would have to pay back 4 percent.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said he didn’t deny that Oklahoma City gained sales tax revenues from other communities when they came to the metro area to make purchases. However, he said local taxpayers also footed the bill for the Oklahoma City Zoo and the Civic Center Music Hall, yet other communities weren’t billed for their citizens going to those locations.

Cornett said those living in rural areas made that choice based on issues such as cleaner air and more room. He said those living in the metro areas also chose to live there based on what their needs were.

“There are the pluses and minuses and you have to be willing to accept both,” Cornett said.

Suburban communities like Bethany were mentioned as having significant problems with the sales tax due to having big-city problems but small-town funding. Cornett, however, said combining services such as the fire departments with a bigger city would eliminate the funding needs for at least one major area for cities facing this issue.

“They don’t need their own fire department,” Cornett said. “They choose to have their own fire department.”

Patrick Connelly, budget manager for the city of Tulsa, said he agreed with Cornett on wanting to stay away from a redistribution of the sales tax revenues. Cornett suggested looking at a source of city funding other than sales taxes and Connelly pointed to property taxes as an obvious solution.

Martin said he had looked at a variety of solutions including ad valorem taxes and taxation on services, but said there were far more barriers with those proposals than the one he decided to present to the committee members.

State Rep. Guy Liebmann, R-Oklahoma City, summed up the opposition by the larger cities on the proposal in pointing out that the taxpayers ultimately made the decisions on how their services would be funded. He said the same situation occurred when his ice company had expanded to the point in which he found someone willing to pay a significantly good price to buy it from him.

“That’s how you build a city,” Liebmann said. “You give them the best of everything and they’ll pay for it.”

Chairman Randy Terrill, R-Moore, said it was important to note that funds were available for rural towns for infrastructure needs through grants provided by Oklahoma as a way to address discrepancies in funding.