Hot-button issues, especially those involving money, get people talking.

After last Monday’s weekly meeting of the Sequoyah County Commissioners, people were talking.

The commissioners touched on several attention- grabbing topics that came out of last week’s conference for the Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma (ACCO).

• Would Sequoyah County like a portion of $75 million that’s been set aside for roads and bridges?

• How about eliminating elections for several county offices, with one person in charge of running the county?

• Anybody in favor of eliminating property taxes, or property tax exemptions for seniors?

• Do you wonder about inflated insurance assessments, like the one that cost Sequoyah County $100,000?

“It was a busy week last week,” District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers said in summarizing what the state association addressed.

While the results from this year’s legislative actions and bills that were passed were of particular interest to ACCO members, the $75 million that was set aside for roads and bridges piqued immediate interest for cash-strapped county commissioners.

“There’ll be 44 counties that apply for this money,” explained Rogers, who serves as president of ACCO. “Right now, the average that we receive per mileage is around $3,500. So what they’re trying to do, they’re trying to bring all those counties up where they all receive at least $4,000 per mile. So two thirds of this will be earmarked for roads — so $50 million of it will be earmarked for roads — and then one-third of it will be for bridges. Those bridges are basically earmarked for major collector roads, which they have to be deficient, and you have to qualify for that, too.

“That’s a good step in the right direction to help out your counties that aren’t quite as rich — for lack of a better word — as some of the other ones. Those distributions should probably start in late August, and those will come in 12 monthly payments. So that’s going to be a big deal for us,” Rogers said.

But as of now, the money for the roads and bridges are the only thing certain for counties. The other hot topics stem from interim studies that have yet to kick in. But Rogers expects them to begin pretty quickly.

“One of the ones that has reared its ugly head again is home rule,” he said. Home rule gives local jurisdictions the power to administer their own sales and use taxes, including setting rates and taxability rules, which are independent from the state’s revenue department. Under home rule, local governments can create their own tax systems, which may have different rules than the state.

Rogers said his understanding of home rule is that it would eliminate some elected offices, and would have one person in charge of the county. “You may still have your three county commissioners as elected positions, but you would have a superintendent running the county. And from my understanding, all these other elected offices would be hired positions,” he said.

“I don’t like it, because I don’t feel like the checks and balances are there, and I feel like that it takes the people’s voice away, for them to be able to choose who they want to represent them in the county. So we’re (ACCO) not big fans of that,” Rogers said, stipulating that it’s “just my personal opinion.”

“I think that with having your elected officials, that there’s probably a lot less chance for any embezzling to be done. So I don’t like the fact that it kind of takes the voice away from the people. I think we have enough of that going on right now across the country, and it’s not a good deal. So that’s something that we (ACCO) will be in opposition of.”

Rogers suspects Tulsa County may be spearheading the push toward home rule. “Those will always come out of your bigger cities,” he said.

“That’s always been a challenge for the rural areas. I don’t know that they feel like the rural areas should be accommodated as much as the urban areas. I mean, they have big monies, big tax dollars. You’ve got Tulsa, and Oklahoma County probably has 100-plus million-dollar budget each year. We’ve got $2.5 million in our ad valorem taxes, and they get well over $100 million. I know it’s a bigger track, more populated and I understand all of that. But they seem to do a whole lot better than we do when we have to actually be creative and make up another $2.5 million just to meet our county budget each year, and doing that without putting it back on the taxpayers’ back. It’s become a real challenge. I’m sure that we have struggles they don’t, but it is what it is. And we’re not the only county in that boat,” Rogers said.

Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp added his support for elected officials. “I believe that we should have our elected officials,” he told Rogers.

“I don’t know that any of this will get off the ground, because I know that our association will be opposed to a lot of this, and we’ll have our lobbyists there, and, of course, we commissioners will show up and visit with our legislators and voice our opinion and go from there,” Rogers offered.

Then there are those who grab a lot of attention when they talk about eliminating property taxes. While it might be a popular idea, Rogers can’t help but see major funding problems for counties.

“There’s a lot of talk going on right now about property taxes exemptions for the seniors to that and freezes for the seniors. There’s a lot of talk going on about eliminating the property taxes right now, which I think everybody’s going to be in favor of that,” he said. “But tell me how we’re going to fund our public schools. That’s what most people don’t understand. Your property taxes — 80% of that goes to funding your public schools. Your county gets 10% of that, and then there are other entities that get the rest of it. So show me a way to do that, show me a way to fund that and raise our sales tax cap to about 4%. I think I could get everybody to vote for paying 12-cent sales tax if we can do away with the property taxes, as long as we can fund that. Then we’ll earmark that to fund our county government. That would be a big increase for us as well. But I don’t know. I’m kind of curious to see what direction they want to go with that, how they plan on funding the public schools.”

In late June, commissioners throughout the state were faced with inflated insurance premiums and assessments as well as loss of coverage for some counties because of a litigious society and several lawsuits — some resulting in astronomical judgments — that have occurred in recent years. Many of those lawsuits were against county jails.

“I do want to talk about the assessments that all the counties had to pay, the insurance assessments where they come in — I think ours was right at $100,000,” Rogers said. “I want everybody to understand that didn’t just reflect on how the jails have done. That reflects on the county as a whole, all of the claims that the county has. I want to clarify that. I guess there was a pretty good misunderstanding across the state that that all fell back on the jail’s back, and that was not true. Those assessments were derived from the county as a whole, all the claims that were filed on the county as a whole.”

The ACCO also addressed what appears to be confusion by counties in filing claims, such as workers comp, and hope to effect change. Another interim study involves recalls for county elected officials and state elected officials. Additionally, homelessness across the state was discussed.

Judicial changes

Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp announced the July 31 retirement of Assistant District Attorney Andy Williams.

“We got some changes that have come on,” Thorp said. “We’ve bid a fair and calming seas to our former Chief of Civil Andy Williams. He stepped down last Thursday after many decent years with few complaints. Every now and then there was a complaint, especially about his persnicketiness.

Thorp recalled that Williams retired as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas before joining District 27 as an ADA. District 27 serves Adair, Cherokee, Sequoyah and Wagoner counties.

“He’d had a good Oklahoma background,” Thorp said of Williams, “who decided to move to Cherokee County to be closer to his son and grandkids. But this time, he really wants to spend a lot of time working for his church. I think either he’s really going to do that or he knew that that would stop me from trying to keep him on. I gave him a church book or Christian book that I read, and I was hoping that would change it around and talk about … but I feel good about it.

“Obviously, this has been something that’s been in the works for a little bit. We have now retained, and we are moving forward with a brand new chief of civil that will be making his rounds. His name is Reggie Armor. Reggie is a pretty solid hire. He’s super excited about this opportunity. He’s been manning the Wagoner County Commissioners meetings the last three or four weeks. Today he’s been released, and he’s on his own over there, but I think he’ll be pretty good,” Thorp said.

“We have also assigned another assistant DA who will work as a backup civil attorney to Reggie, so that we’ve always got two that are working and serving our commissioners and our elected county officials. That’s going to be Blake Johnson, who is now going to be based out of Cherokee County,” Thorp said.

“We have a new assistant district attorney that will be handling criminal cases in Sequoyah County. His name is Dave Fuller. He’s from the Tahlequah area, so he’ll be coming down and working out of the Sequoyah County office Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. So I feel pretty good about our office being manned, and putting all these things in place. We think we’re ready to go for the fall.”

Other business

In other business Monday, the commissioners approved:

• Soliciting bids for two or more 2019 or newer dump trucks for District 2. “We are in dire need of upgrading our trucks,” District 2 Commissioner Beau Burlison said. “We’re going to see what’s out there if I get a motion to go out for bid on some trucks.”

• A contract between Data Scout LLC and Sequoyah County Assessor’s office for mapping system.

SECY: This has been through Andy multiple times, so everything mistakes the way he wanted it. “This is a really nice program. It gives all of our constituents an opportunity to go online and view properties. It’s very helpful.”

• District 2 to apply for the Rural Economic Action Plan (REAP) grant for fiscal year 2025. “I believe we rotate through this yearly. It’s my turn to apply for this,” Burlison said. “If we can apply for this, I think we have to have it in by August 31.”

In new business, the commissioners approved the appointments of:

• Julie Haywood and Michael Dewberry as requisitioning agents for Brushy Mountain Fire Department

• Sheldon Caughman and Bailey Carter as receiving agents, Brushy Mountain Fire Department • Julie Haywood and Melissa Honeycutt as requisition agents for Marble City Fire Department • Debbie McClendon and Robbie Gurlock as receiving agents for Marble City Fire Department • Julie Haywood and Gregg Price as requisitioning agents for Rocky Point Fire Department

• Jeff Price and Diana Price as receiving agents for Rocky Point Fire Department • Gregg Price as tax board representative and Jeff Price as alternate for Rocky Point Fire Department