Growing Owasso To Propose Sales Tax Hike

The personal finance website Nerdwallet, recently ranked Owasso as the fastest growing city in Oklahoma.

Growth is one of the reasons city leaders are expected to call for a half-cent sales tax hike.

Saying it's critical to keep up with future growth; Owasso's city manager, Warren Lehr, is pushing for a permanent half cent sales tax increase, for police, fire and streets.

"We've got to reinvest in order to keep up with public safety and infrastructure needs,” Lehr said.

Owasso's city council is looking into calling a sales tax election for January 13th. It would raise Owasso's overall sales tax rate to 8.917 percent.

Lehr said unlike some communities, Owasso hasn't used property tax for public projects since the 1970's.

Police would get 35 percent of the funds generated from the sales tax increase. Lehr said it would enable Owasso to hire 18 additional officers over the next few years.

"We've been able to keep a fairly low crime rate, but we feel like we have to do something to increase the number of officers on the street doing proactive work,” he said.

The fire department would get 35 percent, enabling Owasso to build a fourth fire station, which would be located on the northwest side of town.

The rest, an estimated $750,000 each year, would pay for street maintenance.

"We've got a lot of new roads in Owasso. We're still in pretty good shape, but in order to stay ahead of the curve we've got to invest more money in street rehabilitation,” Lehr said.

If the measure passes, the city would get rid of a current three-dollar-a-month public safety capital fee collected from water and sewer customers.

City leaders in Owasso plan to hold a series of public meetings to talk more about the half cent sales tax proposal. The first meeting is Thursday night at the Owasso Community Center.