In a special election, Tues, Jan 9th, the voters of Beckham County approved the proposition proposed by the Board of County Commissioners to levy and collect a temporary onetenth of one percent (.10%) sales tax for the purpose of distributing equal shares of collection to all fire departments in Beckham County.
The tax will be used for maintenance, operations and capital outlay expenditures including apparatus acquisitions or upgrade and maintenance for existing apparatus, equipment, safety gear, operations, planning, training or training related expenses, new building construction or improvements on existing facilities but not personal services. Such sales tax is to commence on the first day of Feb. 2024. The tax will be distributed in equal shares to the following fire departments: Sayre, Delhi Rural, Sweetwater, Texola Volunteer, Erick, Carter Volunteer, and Elk City.
The unofficial results with 100 percent of the precincts reporting were 720 in favor of the proposition and 45 voters were against it. There were 765 total ballots cast. This number included 13 absentee ballots cast by mail and 57 early votes. Additionally, there were 695 votes cast on election day.
With 94.12 percent of the voters in favor of the proposition, the support of local fire departments is overwhelmingly apparent. There were 5.88 percent of those voting against the tax.
This is not the tax that is in place to build the new fire station in Elk City, although according to the proposition it could be used toward the project. The Elk City project was voted on by the residents of Elk City and is funded by the extension of that tax, along with additional funds that was intiated by Representative Nick Archer from the State of Oklahoma.
