County Seeks To Use Existing Tax For New Purpose

WATONGA — Blaine County voters will head to the polls on Tuesday, July 13, to either greenlight or shoot down a county proposal to expand the approved uses of an existing sales tax.

The ballot question does not create, increase or decrease any taxes, but rather modifies the wording of an existing tax that was originally levied in 2004. The 0.5% countywide sales tax currently is used for “maintaining and operating” the Blaine County Courthouse and county jail.

The ballot question will ask voters whether that tax could instead be used for “maintaining, improving, operating, equipping and furnishing” the courthouse and “acquiring, constructing, maintaining, improving, financing, operating, equipping, and furnishing” the jail.

In other words, the tax could then be used for new jail construction. Blaine County Sheriff Travis Daugherty said the current facility, which opened in 1964, doesn’t always have enough jail cells.

The jail can currently house about 37 inmates, Daugherty said.

“It would be nice to actually have a jail that could hold the amount of people that we need to actually hold,” he said. “Oftentimes, we are capped out and we have to farm our prisoners out to other counties to house them, which costs taxpayer money.”

Daughterty said his ideal jail would be able to house about 100 inmates. And, in addition to the lack of space, Daughterty said the inmates and deteriorating infrastructure often cause costly maintenance problems.

“They cause more damage than we can keep up with sometimes,” Daugherty said, “which costs the taxpayers a lot of money.” Inmates sometimes tamper with electrical outlets and clog the plumbing, he said.

Daugherty said the sheriff’s offices, which are underneath the jail, have even flooded before due to burst pipes. “We’ve lost equipment and had our offices flooded in the past from them tampering with pipes,” he said. “It’s turned into a nightmare.”

County clerk D. Jennifer Haigler said there is currently about $13 million in the county’s capital outlay account, collected from the sales tax. A lot of that was built up during the state’s last oil boom, she said, when sales tax revenues were particularly high.

Haigler said the county has used that money to, for instance, replace the courthouse sidewalks and steps, and upgrade the building’s elevators. But she believes the money could be better spent.

“You have to look at it from a pros and cons,” Haigler said. “Do we want to continue to maintain … our jail, that is an older jail, and try to continue to maintain it? Or would it be more costeffective to just build a new one?”

She said using the account for new construction could pay for most – maybe even all – of a new jail facility. The proposition would also allow the county to use the sales tax for “the payment of debt service on obligations issued to finance said courthouse and jail facilities,” so the tax could be used to cover future debt if the jail costs more money than the county currently has.

It’s a way to build a new jail without lots of new taxes, Haigler said. “We’re trying to do it as much as we can so that we don’t have a tax increase,” she said. “We don’t want that. I mean, we all live in the county, and we don’t want to pay more.”

And, she pointed out, the proposition only authorizes construction of jail facilities, not courthouse facilities, so voters can rest assured that the county doesn’t intend to replace its historic Watonga courthouse.

“There is no intention at all to do away with this courthouse,” she said. “It is one of the few original courthouses, and we will always pride ourselves as a county government that we are still in that building.”

Early voting will be available at the courthouse on July 8 and 9. The election will be held on Tuesday, July 13, at polling places throughout the county. Voting will be held from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Voters with questions can contact the Blaine County Elections Office at 580-623-5518.