Kingfisher County voters were overwhelming in their response to a proposition to continue a sales tax to fund a number of county services.

That response? Absolutely. And that approval should generate more than $2 million annually for rural fire departments, county roads, county sheriff and jail operations and more.

With 71 percent voting in the affirmative, a half-cent sales tax will continue for five more years.

Of the 648 who voted on Tuesday (and in early voting the previous week), there were 464 votes saying “yes” to the proposition and 184 “no” votes.

“We’re very happy with that,” said Anthony Schwarz, District 3 commissioner who is serving this year as chairman of the Board of County Commissioners. “It passed with good results and we want to thank the community for doing what they did.”

What the community did was pass through a resolution that has produced a minimum of $2.08 million in revenue each of the last four years.

That was the total produced in Fiscal Year 202425 according to information provided by the Kingfi sher County clerk’s office.

The sales tax during the last four years produced a high of $3.24 million in FY 2022-23.

The amount in FY 2122 was $2.38 million and in FY 23-24 it was $2.54 million.

“I’m glad they saw (the need for) this and continued on with it, because this is going to help them (the citizens) t remendously, ” Schwarz said. “They may not see it, but it's going to benefit the community… the whole county.”

The largest bulk of the money during the five-year span of the sales tax - 22% will go to county jail operations.

The commissioners re-established the

Precinct Guide

101 – Kingfisher Memorial Library 102 – Cimarron Electric Cooperative 103 – Central Baptist Association, Kingfisher 105 – Cashion Christian Church 106 – Janet Young Residence, Dover 201 – Hennessey Library 202 – Hennessey Public Schools Auditorium 203 – Central Baptist Church, Dover 204 – Dover Town Hall 301 – Senior Citizens Center, Kingfisher 302 – Okarche Public Schools 304 – Lomega High School county jail trust that will take over the operations of the jail, removing a bulk of that burden from the county sheriff.

Board members for the trust will include Schwarz and Sheriff Aaron Pitts as well as a citizen in each of the three districts. At last Monday’s regular meeting, commissioners appointed Kyle Glazier of Loyal, Tom Kloeppel of Kingfisher and Don Hennigh of Hennessey. All aspects of the county jail - from staffing and food costs and more - will fall under the purview of the jail trust authority. “This will allow the sheriff to keep going as he’s trying to build up his work staff,” Schwarz said. The sheriff’s office will receive 10% of the funds, which is the fourth-largest chunk and a 5% reduction from the previous five years.

The second-largest piece of the pie goes to resurfacing county roads, which will be 19%.

Next is rural fire departments, which will get 15%, a 2% increase from the previous cycle.

“This will bring up some of their revenue to where they can do a little bit more,” said Schwarz, who noted all county departments have done “an excellent job” of securing grants to help supplement their funding.

“This way, they'll be able to go ahead and start buying bunker gear, put another part-time guy on, get more people readily available for a fire call,” Schwarz said. “They can broaden their horizon a little bit and then they can update their equipment a little bit better.”

Other areas that will receive part of the sales tax include:

• County 911 dispatch, 9%

• General government, 7%

• Extension and 4-H, 7%

• The Chisholm, 5% • Free fair, 3%

• Libraries, 3% The proposition received approval in all but one of the 12 precincts.

The lone exception was 106 - the Janet Young residence - which only received two votes, both of which were “no.”

Voters first approved this half-cent sales tax to go in effect in 1991 and have continued to pass the resolution to extend it every five years since.

The next cycle will begin in 2026.