Bryan County Commissioners are moving forward with plans for a Nov. 5 election for a sales tax to benefit the county.
The county currently has a half-cent sales tax that is divided among county general funds, T-Highway and the sheriff’s office.
Commissioners Scott Goad, Tony Simmons and Brandon Carr met Monday morning and approved an agreement with Floyd & Driver in Norman to act as special counsel for legal services for a Nov. 5 special county sales tax election.
However, they took no action on an agenda item for a half-cent sales tax election and they are planning to discuss it again in an August meeting.
Stuart England, an attorney with Floyd & Driver law firm, spoke at the meeting.
“We’ve been talking on and off about the possibility of a sales tax election being called for November 5 for the county,” England said. “This item is just to hire us to help you with the legal process of getting that taken care of. We’ve talked about it before but now, it looks like we’re very close to being ready.
“It’s my understanding in conversations that the original half-cent we had been discussing for sometime, that may not be exactly what you all want to do. As such, my recommendation would be to simply discuss what that’s going to look like and then take no action on this item and then we will come back the first chance in August to actually get a final product before you that everyone can agree to and that’s when we’ll move forward.”
England said under state statute, a county sales tax has to be for a specific purpose.
“You not only have to have a particular purpose, that has to be the only purpose in a proposition,” England said. “If you were to look at wanting to do something for roads and bridge and all of that, that’s a purpose. Now, if we’re also going to throw in the fairgrounds or 4-H or volunteer fire or whatever, that’s technically a separate purpose and so that would have to have its own proposition.”
Commissioner Goad said that originally, they were discussing an election for a quarter cent to each district and a quarter cent for county general and the sheriff’s office.
“It sounds like that’s not something that can be done if we just say for general (funds),” Goad said, and England replied that was correct.
According to England, there could be three separate propositions that would have a total of one cent with three quarters of a cent for roads and bridges among the three districts, an 8th for the sheriff’s office and an 8th for county buildings.
“We could split it among multiple propositions,” England said. “It sounds like that’s where we’re headed, bearing in mind this isn’t a legal question, it’s just political reality if one passes and the others failed, there’s not a lot you can do about that.”
Commissioners said they plan to educate the voters.
In October 2021, a special election for a county halfcent sales tax failed by 62.78 percent.
“Voter education will be critical,” England said.