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District Attorney Kevin Buchanan continues to urge Nowata County voters to say no to the tax proposal on the ballot on Tuesday.  Buchannan says the proposal put forward by the Board of County Commissioners fails to fund the sheriff's office.  For more than a decade, counties like Nowata housed Oklahoma Department of Corrections prisoners in their county jails.  Buchannan says because of the state budget, those dollars are no longer there.

 

Nowata County typically received between 220 and 450 thousand dollars a year from the department of corrections that went to pay for sheriff's deputies and to run the sheriff's office.  Buchannan says he told the Nowata County Excise Board that it needed to replace those dollars.

 

Buchannan says many counties in Oklahoma use a portion of sales tax dollars to fund the sheriff's department.  He says he told the board of commissioners they should do the same.

 

Buchanan says voters should reject Tuesday's tax question so that the board of commissioners can re-work the proposal as something that will fill the county's needs.