Okla. County Ponders Tax Hike to Pay Settlement

The chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party said he favors raising sales taxes for three years to help pay off a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the county sheriff’s office.

Michael Sperry made the comments Friday at a county meeting he organized to discuss the feasibility of financing the $13.5 million judgment with a sales tax.

Sperry said property owners make up the minority in Delaware County, whereas most everyone would pay a sales tax.

“Increasing property taxes will devastate local schools and the real estate market,” he said.

Sperry said his immediate family and extended family own thousands of acres in Delaware County.

Earlier, county officials said they might have to raise property taxes by 18 percent over the next three years to pay off the civil rights judgment handed down in a lawsuit filed by 15 former female inmates. The women alleged in the lawsuit that they were raped or sexually assaulted by law enforcement officers in the county jail or in deputies’ patrol cars.

A state investigation into the conduct of at least one former jail official is under way, county leaders said. No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

Sperry said raising sales taxes 1.5 percent over three years could help pay off the settlement.

This would bring the total sales tax rate in Grove and Jay to more than 11 percent.

Meanwhile, Delaware County residents have in recent years voted down four sales tax increase proposals that were earmarked to build a new jail.

Other proposals that were discussed in the 11/2-hour community meeting included a combination of raising property and sales taxes, passing a bond issue, or the combination of all three.

Another cost-cutting measure suggested was to have the county trim some money from its budget. County Commissioner Billy Cornell said the county’s budget is stretched to the limit.

Whatever method is approved, it likely will not go into effect until January 2013, officials said.

Several residents said they want a federal grand jury to investigate the county to root out other potentially embarrassing situations.

Bobbi Pharris, a Jay resident, said she is organizing a federal grand jury petition in an effort to clean up Delaware County.

“It’s time our governor sends some people here,” Pharris said. “We are the laughingstock of the state.

“Our trust has been broke.”

Sperry, the Democratic Party chairman, said the county still faces civil rights lawsuits naming county commissioners and the Delaware County E911 Trust Authority. Those lawsuits were filed by two emergency dispatchers, who claimed they were sexually harassed.

Sperry suggested seeking a grand jury investigation before the outcome of those cases would be premature, and also noted that county commissioners acted in the best interest of the county in the jail lawsuit.

“The county commissioners protected us,” he said. “This very well could have been a $40 million lawsuit.”