07/31/2026
What is SQ844? (Ad volerum tax funds)
The Oklahoma legislature passed a tax incentive the state can offer to new manufacturing facilities in the late 1980s. The incentive gives the new business a 5 year discount on property taxes, however, the state doesn’t collect property taxes - those are local taxes that fund our public schools, county roads and bridges, Career Tech districts, city infrastructure, and other local necessities.
Since the state gets to offer an incentive using other people’s money (our taxes), the law requires that the state legislature reimburse 100% all of those local property taxes when new businesses use this incentive. Makes sense, right? It’s the state decision to offer the incentive; the state should be the ones to pay for it.
State Question 844 is the state legislature’s attempt to shirk this responsibility. They feel that the state is spending too much — on the incentives they chose to offer. Rather than removing the incentive or adding rules to it, (which they already did with wind energy),
they want to remove the requirement set in place to reimburse local governments. This means our local schools, counties, and communities will lose funding based on decisions the state made years ago.
I am not opposed to tax incentives. They can be a valuable, even essential, tool to bring economic opportunities to our local communities. However, the state government offering the 100% incentive should be responsible for paying for it. SQ844 just gives the state legislature more opportunity to limit that 100% reimbursement, and to take those funds away from schools, tech centers, counties and cities that need it.
If the state is allowed to change the 100% to a percentage, where will the rest of the money come from?
Please vote no on SQ844.
