By News Director Jared Atha
Another strong month in sales tax figures for not only Elk City, but other communities as well.
During the latest meeting of the Elk City Commission, it was reported that the latest sales tax collection for the city was just over $1.2 million, a 23% increase when compared to last year.
City Manager Tom Ivester credits the increase to three things.
City Treasurer Jennifer Rainey also reported that the city’s use tax numbers saw an impressive boost as well, up 42% when compared to last year.
Other cities in the area are benefiting from the financial turnaround too. According to the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the City of Weatherford saw a 25% increase by collecting just over $1 million in sales tax revenues. The City of Clinton collected over $524,000, a 28% boost. Woodward collected just over $1 million, up 21% compared to last year.
By News Director Jared Atha
During the latest Elk City Commissioner’s proceedings, the Commission approved to re-purpose sales tax intake to go towards city employee’s pay.
As explained by city financial adviser Meredith Meacham-Wilson to the Commission, the current sales tax rate in the city stands at 4.5%, with 1.5% dedicated to debt service, half a percent goes towards the hospital with the other whole percent going towards funding CAPPs projects.
She explained that the remaining 3% is split between general operations – which funds city employees, and capital improvements. Meacham-Wilson said that as the city prepares the budget, City Manager Tom Ivester has been looking closely at re-appropriating sales tax funds.
In late December and early January, two members of Oklahoma’s Elk City Fire & EMS, Chief Medical Officer Kyle Chervenka and Assistant Chief Medical Officer Brian Pierce, began helping the Beckham County Health Department with its COVID-19 vaccine pods. We quickly turned into “shot-givers” who met with them every Wednesday in January, February, and March.
After the first day of shot-giving, we realized there was going to be a large population we couldn’t reach: the homebound and elderly who couldn’t stand in lines or maybe even figure out a computer to set up appointments. We determined Elk City Fire & EMS was set up perfectly to help this underserved population, so by mid-January we’d started the paperwork process to begin in-home vaccinations.