SQ847 cuts services, not taxes

Transcribed automatically, with speakers added by AI. It may have mistakes; the recording is the record.

Andy Moore0:00Hello and welcome to Let's Pod This. My name is Andy Moore. Welcome back to another great episode. Friends, we're a month out from the election. It'd be a lot longer than that. Uh, it's not. Joining me today are two excellent people. One, my co-host, Emily Stacy. Hello.

Emily Stacey0:25Hey. How are you? I'm a live man, sentient and in space. That is my trademark. I'm trademarking it. You cannot steal it from me. I won't, but I love it. That's what we are. Maybe that'll be the time we'll be able to spend it.

Emily Stacey0:39Maybe?

Andy Moore0:39Yeah. And then, on a Hita, we've just been discussing how to pronounce your name.

Anahita Ervin0:46Actually, and I am self-conscious that you say it was good. I like it. I say Anahita. My mom says Anahita. The whole thing sounds good. Okay.

Andy Moore0:54You did point out that there are eight letters and five of them are vowels. Yes. It's impressive. It's impressive. And I truly am. Thanks, Grandma.

Andy Moore1:02Right? When we first met a year or two ago, I think I said to you that I appreciate that you use your actual name and don't. You may feel compelled to Americanize it, I don't know, but you don't, and because the burden should be on us.

Anahita Ervin1:18Absolutely, which we love. Yes, exactly. I'm sure. Well, thank you.

Andy Moore1:28Well, so first, let's go through some quick announcements, I think, about things that are coming up in the next few weeks, because this is crunch time. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on October 17th is the next No Kings event, rally, whatever it's going to be. It's nationwide.

Andy Moore1:45I don't know any details about it, but if you were into that kind of thing, we'd find

Emily Stacey1:48it online. Yes, Google it. Use the Google machine.

Andy Moore1:51Yes. Secondly, on October 20th, there's a town hall meeting on Hita. Can you tell us about that?

Anahita Ervin1:58Come learn about the state questions. It's a non-partisan town hall at the Mayflower UCC Church on 36th and Portland. It'll also be live streamed, so you can watch it anywhere. You can host watch parties. And if you're in the Tulsa area,

Anahita Ervin2:11the League of Women Voters will be having a bigger watch party that y'all can attend. Fantastic. I'll be talking, as well as my colleague Cole Allen.

Andy Moore2:19Excellent. Yeah, and this town hall meeting is specific about the state questions. The two state questions, correct. Which is why you're on the show today.

Anahita Ervin2:27Yes, if you're hearing this, you might not wanna come, but please come anyway, bring a friend. Yeah, exactly.

Emily Stacey2:32Well, no, if you're hearing this, you need to hear about both state questions. And Cole Allen is also a very knowledgeable, reputable policy analyst for Oahuoma Policy. So getting to see the two of you, like Wonder Twins Activate would be pretty dope as well.

Emily Stacey2:44So yeah, listeners, you should still go.

Andy Moore2:47You should, and I think she's right. You should bring a friend. Absolutely. And if you want to really be an overachiever, you can host a watch party on your own. So they're gonna livestream the whole thing on YouTube.

Andy Moore3:00Okay policies, YouTube channels. Great. And so if you wanna, it's on a, what night of the week is that? Tuesday, Thursday?

Anahita Ervin3:07Tuesday.

Andy Moore3:08Tuesday night. So if you wanna get some friends together and like order pizza or grab some burgers or whatever, make a potluck. And then watch the YouTube. That sounds like a super dorky but very important

Andy Moore3:22way to spend your Tuesday night. Absolutely.

Emily Stacey3:24And shout out to Annie who undoubtedly is helping with the live streaming behind the scenes. We love you. Yes, we love you. Right.

Andy Moore3:31And you guys mentioned Cole Allen. Cole will be a guest on the podcast here in a future week. I'm working to coordinate that. So we'll have him on to talk about state question 845. Today though, we're gonna talk about state question 847. Indeed.

Andy Moore3:46In just a few minutes. One last, one last announcement.

Emily Stacey3:49Yeah. One last announcement. We now have Nondoc confirmed the attorney general debate October 22nd. It is a Thursday evening at Metro Tech, the Spring Lake location. So really accessible, open. So please, please, please, please sign up. There's a link on the non-doc page. It will obviously be right because it's right crowd control,

Emily Stacey4:11things like that. Only so many people can fit into an auditorium. So please get your tickets ASAP. This should be... again this was not a race. That was supposed to be a a race and it might be a little bit of a race. Eccles is getting a run for his money and I'm not sure if it's necessarily coffee himself, but more of the not so super news

Emily Stacey4:36and some of the residual leaking out from Kevin Stitt and some of the news you wanted to pivot to.

Andy Moore4:44Oh right, well and I will say, I mean I think anybody like John Eccles who's been in office for more than a decade. Who's the name? It comes with some baggage if you've been a public figure. Sure, sure.

Andy Moore4:55All of that stuff gets dragged out again if you've got an opponent.

Emily Stacey4:57I'm a fan, I know, hot take. I like John Eccles, I am a fan of John Eccles. He does what he says he's going to do. He has always been an amenable politician. He has always been open and very accessible with my students.

Emily Stacey5:12I mean, we've run races from his office as the majority leader. So, I'm, you know, a little biased. but I do like him as a public servant. He is always not withstanding any of the news. I like him as a politician.

Emily Stacey5:29I just wanted that to be. Yes. I wanted to get that out there.

Andy Moore5:32Well, and one other event announcement is an important one. Yes. And then we'll do some news. Oh, I'm sorry, yes. And then we'll get to the sake question.

Andy Moore5:38So that's our run-of show. That's a process. It is a process. The other big announcement, of course, is just a reminder that on November 3rd, on election night,

Andy Moore5:45at the Tower Theatre is the election night show. It's gonna be super fun. It is. Former state senator, AJ Griffin, now CEO of the Potts Family Foundation will be there. Erica Lucas will be there, live band magician,

Andy Moore5:59got a special guest coming through. And then, you know, once election results start coming in around 7.30 or eight o'clock, we're gonna pivot to just a big dance party because I don't know what else to do with all this anxiety besides eat cheese

Andy Moore6:13and dance with your friends. So are you guys gonna, are you coming to election?

Emily Stacey6:17Yeah, absolutely. All right.

Anahita Ervin6:19I'll be there.

Andy Moore6:20Excellent. I mean, we're expecting like 300, 400 people. Excellent. Maybe more, and so it should be really fun. We have a really great food. I'll thank some of our sponsors right now.

Andy Moore6:28One is Taco Empire, one is Boomtown Creamery. With who? Oh, there's a third one that's escaping me right now. And we've been talking to a few others this week. So if you are listening to this and you are a restaurateur,

Andy Moore6:43or connected to some sort of food delivery, I don't know, some kind of food thing. And you've got access to cheese or other food, you think would be delicious? Let us know. We would love to have some help.

Emily Stacey6:55Inviting danger, yeah, but okay.

Andy Moore6:58I mean, in this environment, any kind of food is dangerous, I think. Oh no, cyclosporosis? Right, yeah. Come dance with your friends, don't get diarrhea. That's the tagline for the event, no.

Andy Moore7:10It'll be really fun. It's gonna be a really great event. And it is all ages, several people have asked, it is all ages. If your kids, if you'd let them watch the Tonight Show or like the Late Show David Letterman,

Andy Moore7:19you can bring them to this, right? So if they're young, old, whatever, they might be a little bit bored because kids get bored, that's okay. Bring a tablet.

Emily Stacey7:28I've got a seven year old, bring a tablet to just back up entertainment. It's always good to have.

Andy Moore7:33Or just like let them come and be bored. Like that's okay too.

Emily Stacey7:36Oh my God forbid, are you kidding me? I know. Look at us, we turned out okay. Don't get me on a soapbox today. I want to strangle my child. Well, let's do a couple of quick hits on news from this week.

Andy Moore7:53First, President Trump was in town yesterday for a rally. Yes. Did you, have you watched any of the coverage of it?

Anahita Ervin8:01Not at all. I just saw the one part where he name dropped Nikkyla Jasmine Thompson. Oh, I didn't even see that part. What he say? That we have a socialist running on.

Anahita Ervin8:12Oh, OK. Just the empirical. Just the initial. OK.

Emily Stacey8:15Interesting. Yeah, I caught some of it. And you very well know I did because I texted you. In fact, I think I excitedly voice messaged you. It was like, OMG. At certain points, some of our local news stations

Emily Stacey8:29were live broadcasting, right? And pregame live broadcast. He hasn't even, right? The eagle hasn't even landed yet. It was like hours before the eagle was going to land. I saw the lines of people standing out.

Emily Stacey8:39I saw the light horsemen walking by. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really interesting. I mean obviously a historic moment. Very exciting. Anytime we get a sitting president coming to the state, whether it's Obama, Trump, this is apparently only the third time that a president has ever visited Oklahoma. The

Emily Stacey8:56third is Teddy Roosevelt back in the good old days, right? Some lore that we learned last night while watching News 9. So really interesting. I think the, it I mean, it was fine. It was a campaign rally. It was, I think, beneficial for Mazie, most of all, simply to have an audience of human beings

Emily Stacey9:20who probably would not have seen him otherwise, especially in that part of the state. So, probably he was the winner last night, I'm thinking.

Andy Moore9:33Yeah, I mean, the fact that it's only the third time in history, I think it's a big deal. Yeah. And a lot of people have asked why Durant, like why did he come there? And when you look at a map,

Andy Moore9:44I think it makes a lot more sense that Durant is one, fairly close to Texas, right? So places like McKinney and Plano are closer to Durant than Oklahoma City is. Small, rural, yep. And that hole, if you just draw a circle,

Andy Moore9:58like around Durant, like there's a huge swath of folks that are Trump's base. And I think we talked about this earlier at lunch, that Trump is doing like a 32 stop tour over the next month that seems to look a lot like, at least not so much in locations,

Andy Moore10:19but in tone, what George W. Bush did in 2006, which was, I think you call it kind of an apology tour.

Emily Stacey10:26Yes, right. And he sort of fades into the background after that. Prominent Republicans, particularly those who are in very contested elections are really issuing. They are trying to stay away. The poll numbers are bad.

Emily Stacey10:43The economy numbers that came out today, where only 26% of Americans polled approve of his handling of the economy weeks before an election. That's dangerous. So he's going to places where, I mean, these are safe districts.

Emily Stacey10:59These are safe places for these conservatives. And you're absolutely correct. You draw that 100 mile, 200 mile radius from Duran, Oklahoma, and you're talking about the silent majority, you're talking about that flyover country that Trump is so good

Emily Stacey11:14at sort of whispering to you, right?

Andy Moore11:17Well, that's kind of his whole style, right? Like even in his previous campaigns, he went to places where presidents didn't visit and it's more, like people really appreciate it. Absolutely. And you would see interview after interview

Andy Moore11:31even people who said, I don't always agree with him, but the fact that he came means something. And it's people who felt forgotten, and that has been, I think, a winning. Strategy for him, yeah, absolutely. It does seem like maybe that strategy is wearing thin

Andy Moore11:46now 10 years into his.

Emily Stacey11:47Mildly, yeah. I mean, it just doesn't help that the policies right now are hella unpopular. Mildly is neither. Yeah, so whenever you go out, particularly in such contentious election year. It sort of looks hollow. It looks like, please pat me

Emily Stacey12:03on my back and tell me I'm still doing a good job. Even though the numbers tell me I'm not doing a good job.

Andy Moore12:06Right. The other thing is that there are lots of more competitive races in battleground states or whatever. And many of those have, well not many, two of them have proactively told the Trump administration please don't come. Yeah, stay out of this. You're gonna hurt us. And then a whole bunch of others have just not responded. And so I think some of that is like,

Andy Moore12:30he's getting antsy, he wants to play a role in the party to whatever degree. He probably wants to sell some more merch. He's gonna do something. And so this is a strategy to get him up doing something but not doing harm to the candidates

Andy Moore12:43that think that he might.

Emily Stacey12:45Yeah, specifically from last night, right? Because he was coming from the Texas rally. I thought that was incredibly amusing. Kim Paxton was one of those races where he has endorsed, he endorsed right either before or after he endorsed Mazie here in the state of Oklahoma, that was right after. And Paxton had just, just

Emily Stacey13:08earlier this week, come out and noted that the little midterm rally that they had down in Texas a couple weeks ago was why Paxton's poll numbers are now down. So earlier this week Paxton gets caught on a hot mic talking about how Trump and his polling numbers have pulled Paxton's numbers down. And then, you know, Trump shows up at a rally last night in Texas and Kim Paxton's in the room.

Emily Stacey13:33Trump doesn't know. He believes he's going to be in the room. But at a certain point, I don't know if you saw this, he's like, oh, that pain in the ass. It calls Kim Paxton a pain in the ass whilst in the room with Kim Paxton. I mean, it just, it's delicious.

Emily Stacey13:48So we often win, you know, you're in a place where it's contentious and he's endorsed his candidate and has poured millions of dollars into that campaign. He's still in tension. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Stacey14:02We're still stirring a pot, we're still poking. It's, I don't know, it's incredibly interesting. That's real funny.

Anahita Ervin14:08That whole race is real funny. I mean, Trump has made fun of Paxton, like how he dresses and his appearance. And I was just like, what is happening to-

Emily Stacey14:14Poor Paxton, he's just a beat dog, man. And then what happened to like, Decorum and like, just like, are you kidding me? Yeah, thank you.

Emily Stacey14:23What happened to Decorum? Like, girl, bye. Makes me feel like an old man, but seriously, like, we used to stand for something. Anyway.

Andy Moore14:29Work here. Yeah, we also, yesterday, the same day as the Trump rally, there was the gubernatorial debate between Cindy Munson, the Democratic nominee, and Mike Mazie, the Republican nominee. The other, there are other candidates for governor.

Andy Moore14:42There's two independents and a libertarian. I think they're on the ballot. They did there was a threshold Campaign donation. Yeah, yeah $50,000 campaign donation threshold which is those didn't make really difficult to them Yeah, it isn't which is I mean, I honestly like the fact of the matter is if you can't raise 50,000 Well, you're not a violent candidate But also in this environment and so they weren't there

Andy Moore15:07They recorded the debate earlier in the day because obviously Maisie had to get down to the Trump rally I didn't watch it either. Did you watch if you watch any of that debate?

Emily Stacey15:15It's on my list. Yeah, Mar. Weekend viewing. Right, yeah.

Andy Moore15:19Yeah. Yeah, I did it. That's what I, from what I heard from mostly some reporters and some friends who watched it, it was, in our intern, Noah watched it and he reported to me today that it was fine.

Andy Moore15:31That like, both, he felt like neither candidate gained nor lost anything, really. I think my perception is that Maisie had the most to lose. to lose that his previous debate performances had cost him some and it sounds like he beat expectations there and that Munson did great as like did fine and that it was net zero so okay that's it. Well yay! Exactly so I'm looking forward to

Emily Stacey16:03watching Burger of a Debate. So pour yourself a cold drink and yeah I mean I think debates in

Andy Moore16:10modern politics are so often like this. The feedback that I heard was that they both stuck to their scripts and their talking points, even at the expense of using some comments as opportunities to like- Jab.

Andy Moore16:25To jab, that they like passed that and kept going. So yeah, good job, you guys are on the same. Interesting. You owe me a Coke. Thanks.

Emily Stacey16:33Well- Yeah, I don't know. I, and then if you listen to the rally, I did get pieces of Mazie's rally speech. I wonder, and again, I haven't seen the debate performance, so I will be interested, the demeanor, right?

Emily Stacey16:50And the delivery, that has been a lot of his issue in the campaign, and so I'll be interested, because the rally speech was a little... Is it just that he doesn't have the energy, the pump? I don't know. It's, yeah, maybe that's it.

Emily Stacey17:08I don't know.

Andy Moore17:10You're saying that Maisie doesn't have the energy?

Emily Stacey17:12I was questioning whether he had the energy. That's all I'm asking. Yeah, I don't know. It's just something. Something lacking? Yeah, I just can't put my finger on it.

Emily Stacey17:18Mm-hmm. Do you think- Especially in a crowd like that. That we're- You know what I mean? Yeah, where everybody is really fired up.

Emily Stacey17:26He seems to be more demure. That's it. Demure on fire. Are we still saying demure? So demure, so. She is.

Emily Stacey17:34Isn't that a meme, Tyler, with it? I am, yes. Yeah. That's a thing, yes. I'm old, shut up. Well now we're saying chic, right?

Emily Stacey17:40Which I've been saying for decades, but now it's back. It's back, is it? It is. I don't know, I'm a 50 year old in my heart, I don't know anything actually. Sigh.

Emily Stacey17:49That's funny.

Andy Moore17:51Well, since we're all old, let's talk about property taxes. Oh my god. This is a youthful topic. It is a youthful, it's like a spring chicken. So listeners, you may know

Andy Moore18:02that there are two state questions on the ballot. If you don't know, you're not alone. I don't think most voters know there's two state questions, which is why we're doing an episode about it and a town hall meeting in a few weeks. And there will be other town hall meetings

Andy Moore18:16and events about this. Because other groups, yeah, because this is, these are both very important state questions. So we're gonna, I'll mention them both and then we'll talk in depth about one of them today. The state question 845 is about the judicial

Andy Moore18:33nominating commission. And it, which was a voter created, like an initiative petition to create a process to nominate justices that is outside of partisan influence, right? The Bar Association plays a big role in it. And this state question, both of these state questions

Andy Moore18:52are legislatively referred measures, which means they did not come from the people. They came from the legislature. The legislature in this case is trying to change the JNC to remove some of those safeguards. As I said earlier, we'll talk more about that

Andy Moore19:09in a future episode with Cole Allen. Yeah, we won't spoil it. We won't spoil it, but that's the. That's the gist. That's the gist. Yeah.

Andy Moore19:16That's not the actual gist, that's Angie's gist. No. The actual gist is incomprehensible. Right, as they often are when written by the politicians. I mean, the subtextual gist is that we, We, we being the legislature, want to take control

Andy Moore19:32or have a majority control in deciding who the judges are at the stage. Okay, anyway, yes, that was the update that next week. Well, that was the gist. Right, yeah, it's we wanna make,

Andy Moore19:46we wanna create activist judges. Right. Even though we rail against them all the time.

Emily Stacey19:49But why are we here, Andy?

Andy Moore19:50Why are we here? Emily, we're here to talk about state question 847. She's been sitting on this couch for an hour. Ship this by to me. That's right. state question that deals with some tweaks to the state's property tax law.

Andy Moore20:03Yes. The gist on this one is lengthy. It's on the ballot and everyone that I've presented it to they've read they say I don't know what this means. And that's why we're joined today by Anahita Ervin from OK Policy. When we were talking about this episode you said please don't start by asking me what's this all about. And so we're not gonna start there because you are explaining one minute. I said briefly explain state question 847. I can't briefly explain it. Right. Which is why you're here

Andy Moore20:36because there's not a short explanation. We're gonna get into it in depth. I have got a gist of my own for this one and I'll throw mine out there now. Please.

Anahita Ervin20:46So I can correct you. I was gonna say I want to see how offended you are by this.

Andy Moore20:50Yeah, that's fine. My interpretation of the ballot title is that it in short changes Oklahoma's property tax rules in a way that does not benefit most people. It does benefit wealthy people. For the rest of us, we will see little to no impact. And in fact, because the way that it changes it,

Andy Moore21:10it doesn't actually cut anything. It just lowers the rate of increase. So people are gonna think they're cutting property taxes. They're not cutting it at all. They're just slowing it down and it's gonna hurt regular people, right?

Andy Moore21:23Wealthy folks are gonna benefit, but first time home buyers, anybody else. That relies on services. That relies on services. That part. Yeah, so even if you keep living where you're living,

Andy Moore21:33and even if you don't own a home or whatever, you're gonna be hurt by it because it's gonna reduce services. Yeah, but that's my thing is like, they're gonna say it's about cutting property taxes, and it's not, it's really about giving a tax cut

Andy Moore21:45to the wealthy and hurting at the expense of the rest of us and hurting all of us. That's Andy's gist. Tell me how wrong that was.

Anahita Ervin21:53I don't think it was necessarily wrong. I think just missing a lot of details. Yeah, that's why it's short.

Andy Moore22:00That was my whole point. Right, right. You give it just. Yeah.

Anahita Ervin22:04Okay, so as you said, this is a legislative referendum. It came because there were two factions in the state legislature. There were the Freedom Caucus that wanted to completely eliminate property taxes. And then there are the Democrats and reasonable Republicans who wanted some change, some relief provided. This was sort of a...

Anahita Ervin22:30What's the word I'm looking for? Compromise. Compromise, thank you. Between those two ideas, so what this bill does is it reduces the property assessed value, the growth of property assessed value. So instead of right now current law, if you have a homestead exemption on your home or

Anahita Ervin22:52agricultural land, your property's assessed value can grow year to year 3%, not more than 3%. And other properties grow by 5%. What this is doing is reducing that to 1.75% and 4% respectively. Property assessed value, what is that? That is, you have your market value of your home.

Anahita Ervin23:14say you bought a home and it's $300,000. That's the market value that it would sell at today. The assessed value, based on our constitution, counties can determine it to be anywhere from 11 to 13.5% of that market value.

Andy Moore23:29So... It's just up to the county assessor or whomever to do that? Or is it like a set rate county by county? It varies. So some counties 11%, some counties are 12%.

Anahita Ervin23:37Some counties, I don't know exactly who determines it, but each county has a different. So that's what fractional assessment means. It's a fraction of your market value. Then that assessed value, you subtract your exemptions that you get, any deductions you get,

Anahita Ervin23:52and that's how you get your taxable value. Now this taxable value is what is then multiplied by your tax rate, your mileage rates, to determine your property taxes. So that's what you actually end up paying. So for a $300,000 home, if the assessment ratio is 12%,

Anahita Ervin24:08ratio is 12%, your assessed value is $36,000. And then if we multiply by a tax rate of 126, do some math, it's about $3,000 something dollars of your property taxes. Now what the assessed value there is doing is, say your property value increases 10% next year.

Anahita Ervin24:33Your assessed value, that is a fraction of your property, can only increase 3% every year. And so it limits how quickly, by proxy, your property taxes can increase. But that's only one factor. The other factor is the property tax rate.

Anahita Ervin24:48And so that's sort of, so what this means.

Andy Moore24:52We're all glazed over now. I know. So our listeners have changed the channel, but keep going.

Anahita Ervin24:57What this means essentially is it's, this if passed, it will slow the growth of revenue. future revenue, so it's not a cut right now. Nobody's property tax bills are gonna go down. Nothing goes down. It's not a cut.

Anahita Ervin25:12You may have noticed from the economy, nothing gets cheaper. Nothing goes down. Nothing gets cheaper. But your property's assessed value will grow slower. There'll be less revenue in the future.

Andy Moore25:24This seems like it would really hurt everybody in some way, like if you live in, let's say, an urban area, like you live in Oklahoma County somewhere, and things are growing. The economy's booming, you're doing well.

Andy Moore25:37Property values are going up, and that's good for a long-term wealth or people who own those properties or whatever. So people want their property value to go up. That's happening, but if you're, as you said, if your property value goes up 10%,

Andy Moore25:54the tax rate only goes up by a maximum of 3%. You're assessed value on those accounts. And so, as a county grows, you may also have increased needs. Correct. And this, even that rate of growth now

Andy Moore26:06doesn't necessarily keep up with the rate of need.

Anahita Ervin26:09Right, so what this bill is, the state question, it'll end up creating, revenue will only grow, it'll grow below the rate of inflation. That currently is 3%. And so when thinking about local services, I think the biggest point to consider is,

Anahita Ervin26:24local services are gonna have to continue growing and serving the need, but the revenue they're getting is growing below the rate of inflation, so you're gonna see eroding services. and how are you gonna keep up with the growing population and things keep getting expensive.

Anahita Ervin26:37I think the bigger thing to consider is there was an interim study about this and Oklahoma City assistant manager came and spoke at the interim study and he talked about the current general obligation bonds that are already passed.

Anahita Ervin26:49These are bonds that voters have already voted on and how bonds work is you're voting on a 10 year, 20 year bond. And those bonds, the amount you vote on is calculated on estimated growth of revenue in the future, which is based on current law.

Anahita Ervin27:07But if you change that estimated growth as state question 847 does to reduce revenue, then cities are not gonna have enough money to pay those bond debts, but you still have to pay debt. You're not gonna get away with not paying debt. So city council, especially Oklahoma City,

Anahita Ervin27:22city council is gonna have to face a decision if they don't make enough revenue to either increase the bond length. So if it's a 10 year bond, go to 14 years. and in those four years it's gonna be more expensive to do those things.

Anahita Ervin27:33You just pay more interest in everything else. Or you increase the tax rate I was talking about. And increasing those tax rates, that's gonna hurt all homeowners that are in that jurisdiction. But also it'll hurt seniors with a senior freeze.

Anahita Ervin27:49Because right now seniors with a senior freeze, with the senior freeze, what is that? That is your property's assessed value is zero percent. It doesn't go up. There's no increase in your assessed value once you get that.

Anahita Ervin28:00But you're increasing the tax rate. That's the second factor that increases your property taxes. So seniors will be affected by if those tax rates go up for bond measures. Yeah.

Andy Moore28:09This is like so in the weeds. It's so in the weeds. And I worry that people are going to be like, oh, OK. I know, OK. I don't understand this. Hopefully they say, I don't understand this.

Andy Moore28:20I'm going to vote no. But that's always a risk. But, so if in a state like Oklahoma, it's more likely that like the urban areas, the ones that are growing and like property values are going up and all that,

Andy Moore28:37but in the rest of the state, rural areas where maybe property values aren't increasing. Yeah, like they're not gonna see any benefit from this. Right, so the 3% increase allowable increase is the max, right, but there are properties that grow at a slower rate. There's likely rural properties that don't grow as quickly

Andy Moore28:56because the market's not as hot. Yeah, they're not gonna see that big of a benefit from this. Would they see a potential downside though? Like if this passed, while it's not gonna exceed that, it's not even gonna go up to 3%, but it still means they're gonna have less resources.

Anahita Ervin29:16In the long term, so the fiscal note on this by a professor at UCO was in the first year, it's not that big of a fiscal impact, it's $45 million statewide. But the impacts are seen in the long term because these things exponentially grow.

Anahita Ervin29:32And so in year 10, it's about a $600 million impact on local revenue statewide. And this is money that never goes to the state capital, right, this is money that stays on the local level and funds local, mainly public schools. And so for rural schools, that's still,

Anahita Ervin29:51Whether you're serving five kids or 500 kids, you still need a school building. And you need to be able to pass bonds to fix that infrastructure, or you need to have that property tax money to pay for general operating funds

Anahita Ervin30:03of your schools and career tax. Rural areas depend on those resources, on libraries, on libraries to provide internet services. So that is a loss of revenue in terms of future revenue.

Andy Moore30:16Right, well, and even if, I mean, just the time-value money is that as costs go up, if a revenue doesn't keep up, it's gonna be getting more and more expensive. This is the same thing with individuals where your eggs and your gasoline and your bread

Andy Moore30:31and everything else is more expensive, but if your pay is remaining the same, it gets harder and harder to afford to live, which is what's gonna, it's a way to starve our counties and school districts over time. Yes, yes.

Emily Stacey30:43What are proponents of 847? How are they advocating for this measure?

Anahita Ervin30:50So one thing they say is it's not a property tax cut, so local governments will not face a cut immediately. They'll be able to adjust their budgets over time.

Emily Stacey31:01That's cute.

Anahita Ervin31:02Right? But as we just discussed, they're not taking account for inflation and lower growth in revenue. So it's a little misleading in that sense. They also say, so I forgot to mention the other thing

Anahita Ervin31:15that the state question does. The senior freeze is not affected, But it does create a tier system for seniors that currently don't qualify for the senior freeze. They make too much to have the senior freeze. It creates a tier system so that people above that income

Anahita Ervin31:31up to some threshold, which I won't go into because it's really complicated and I don't want your audiences to glaze over. They'll get a varied assessment cap anywhere from 0.35% to 1.75% depending on their income. And there's like five layers to this tier.

Anahita Ervin31:48And so it's essentially, I think, the only redeeming part of the state question that it provides a progressive tax structure and benefits to seniors that currently don't get any of those benefits. But it does nothing for the lowest income seniors

Anahita Ervin32:05who are currently getting the freeze. There's no additional benefit for them. So the majority of seniors that need help that already are maximizing what they can with the benefits they are getting cannot get anything out of this.

Anahita Ervin32:18And I find that really interesting because lawmakers at the Capitol were talking about property taxes from the perspective of, we need to help seniors. We need to help seniors because apparently it's false, county assessors have debunked it,

Anahita Ervin32:31but apparently seniors across the state are losing their homes because they can't afford their property taxes. That was the claim. That's the claim, but that's not true. It's not true at all.

Anahita Ervin32:39But if that is what you believe, then why doesn't the policy you are putting forth benefit the lowest income seniors? Right, right.

Andy Moore32:47because we use it as a talking point and not as an actual thing. So who benefits from this policy? I mean, I know what you're trying to say is it's...

Anahita Ervin33:00To some degree, all homeowners benefit, right? If you think of it from the perspective of 10 years down the line, your property taxes will be lower by $200, say, than they would have been under current law. But nobody 10 years down the line is gonna think,

Anahita Ervin33:14oh, I remember state question 847 passed in 2026. And based on that, if that hadn't passed, my property taxes would be $200 higher this year. Nobody is thinking of that because it's a counterfactual, it's a hypothetical. So I don't think that anybody's gonna notice

Anahita Ervin33:31that benefit in their pockets. For all the other, so the types of properties, Homestead and Ag Land is 3% right now, goes down to 1.75%, the other properties are all gonna go down to 4%. Now this includes small businesses will benefit,

Anahita Ervin33:47that's good for them. It'll also benefit large conglomerates that own property in Oklahoma.

Andy Moore33:53Like data centers. Like data, yes. I mean they probably got a TIF anyway and they're not paying taxes in the first place, but if they're paying taxes.

Anahita Ervin34:00Right, there's a lot of other subsidies the state probably is gonna provide to data centers that are outside the scope of this particular state question.

Emily Stacey34:08What about aluminum smelters, how about those?

Anahita Ervin34:11Any individual or company that owns property in Oklahoma who benefit from this, including companies that are aluminum smelters.

Andy Moore34:22So I think, I mean, it seems like this does. It's a broad stroke. You're right, like the- Most tax policies are, unfortunately.

Anahita Ervin34:29And we, at OK Policy, support targeted relief for those that need it so that we don't erode our revenue base completely. Right, right.

Andy Moore34:37Well, and we, you're laughing at me for snapping, but seriously, I mean, I think we have a real affordability crisis in this state that can be addressed, but what we know about the origins of the state question is that it was from legislators

Andy Moore34:50who want to eliminate the property tax entirely. Which they would say is gonna save people money, and it will save people some money up front and cost us our entire lives, right? And it says nothing for renters, right? No.

Anahita Ervin35:05The benefits of the property tax cut will go to the landlords, but they will not pass it on to renters. They'll increase rent, yeah.

Andy Moore35:12And like you said, they're not gonna be saving that much money. On average, maybe using this $300,000 house as an example, how much would a typical homeowner see if, because I think property tax rates have tended to, at least in Oklahoma County, have tended to be bumped up

Andy Moore35:31by that max of 3% a year, which is really just trying to keep pace with inflation. So if they can at max keep up at 1.75%, What's the average difference there of savings?

Anahita Ervin35:43It depends on where your house is located and what the mileage rate is of all the school district you lie in, the county, there's so many mill rates that apply that it varies. There is a calculator by GenExplitives on the sub-stack that I need to check out that shows you

Anahita Ervin36:00how much you would save.

Andy Moore36:02Because I thought I read it with something like $39 a year. The average, I think she said, was around there, yeah. Yeah, like not very much money. No. Like, half a take of gas.

Emily Stacey36:12Right. Per year. If gas prices keep going up, maybe not even that. Not that that's right. Do you know how much a bean burrito is at Taco Bell? No.

Emily Stacey36:22OK. It's over $3. Put your fist down. Put your fist down, pops. Get out of the lawn. But seriously, that's highway robbery.

Anahita Ervin36:30So going back to the affordability crisis, I think that I would like to see next session, hopefully, if the state question passes, I don't think property, I mean, if it fails, I hope it fails. Next session, property taxes are gonna come back up. What I would like for lawmakers to think about

Anahita Ervin36:47is broaden their idea of how to deal with affordability crisis in Oklahoma. There's a lot more things we need to talk about if property taxes are one of the components, what else is aiding in that skyrocketing? Our housing markets don't have enough affordable units to,

Anahita Ervin37:05yes, we want our markets, our house market values go up, but the consequences of that is that your property taxes are going to go up too, but if you make the housing market a little less hot, there won't be such a large skyrocket in market values.

Emily Stacey37:23I mean, beyond this, the amount of suffering that has gone on in our municipalities, counties, the grocery sales tax starting there, the hemorrhaging of funding and reliable sources of funding, I just, to what end? And what, I wonder what the state legislature's goal is. And it's a particular group of legislators that are entirely gung-ho about the elimination

Emily Stacey37:56of taxes altogether. And what concerns me and being wonky in political science, you know, what happens? As you've mentioned, where does the money come from? because the services still have to be provided. Citizens still have to be taken care of. Roads have to be paid. There has to be ambulance services. All of these things still have to continue. And so

Emily Stacey38:20what ends up happening, right, 41 years of living, is whenever we cut taxes, right, at one level, typically, the offset, it gets offset onto the consumer, onto the citizen in a different way. And so it just, my deeper concerns are to what end? What is the end goal here, bros? If you wanna eliminate taxes, that's great. Prove to me how it's going to help my affordability

Emily Stacey38:50when we eliminate income taxes, property taxes, all the taxes, and still provide a functioning state for everybody.

Andy Moore38:56Right, I think, I mean, there really is like a dystopian documentary to be made about a state that actually did what they're proposing to do, right, which is to eliminate the property tax and eliminate the state income tax. And all we have left is sales tax,

Andy Moore39:13which we cannot fund anything on. And so the conversation too often by politicians is, we're gonna cut taxes, but they don't talk about what services are gonna cut. Exactly. You can't cut taxes and keep providing services.

Emily Stacey39:29I'm not a flaming liberal, man. I hate taxes too. I've not paid my taxes for this year yet. Like I've not filed those things. I've texted my aunt this morning about the tax software that my family buys, like can we?

Emily Stacey39:40Poor adulting today. Right, I'm not a person who is excited about this, but I understand that living in a democracy and living in a democratic civil society means that I have to give up some things so that we can all have a safe, stable society, right?

Emily Stacey39:58And being provided with the things that we were promised and that takes funding. I'm just not sure where we don't under, like I hate math, I can't tell you how much I hate math, but I don't understand where we're taking money from this pool and don't know where,

Emily Stacey40:17how it's gonna get refilled. Yeah, I just.

Anahita Ervin40:19So the few lawmakers that have, most lawmakers don't talk about the alternative. They always stop at we're gonna cut taxes and then they don't talk about either the services they cut or where it'll come back from. The lawmakers that do talk about replacing it

Anahita Ervin40:31always turn to consumption taxes because they think that is a more fair tax because people can choose not to partake in our economy and that is more fair for those people. We love the SIN tax in Oklahoma. We know consumption taxes are the most burdensome

Anahita Ervin40:46for low income people. It's a regressive system and if we're gonna rely on funding state government entirely on that, that's gonna be a little problematic because it's also one of the most fluctuating taxes ever. property taxes are the most stable.

Anahita Ervin41:00You can hate it as much as you want. It's always gonna come through. But there was a interim study the other day about increasing sales taxes on digital services, which is a good policy area that people need to look at because I know we're delving completely into something else.

Anahita Ervin41:16We tax DVDs and records, but we don't tax Spotify or Netflix, right? It's just a fairness of taxation. If you're gonna tax one, why not tax the digital service? That would bring in a lot of revenue to the state.

Anahita Ervin41:2830 states have done this, it's a good policy to pursue, but the way that they're pursuing it is, let's bring in this revenue so we can cut income taxes. And that's just a flawed sense of how to fund government because it's not gonna be enough. First of all, one in five, one in six dollars

Anahita Ervin41:45come from income taxes, and it's gonna benefit the wealthiest people. So yeah, let's talk about the larger revenue issue we're having in the state.

Emily Stacey41:54Yeah, we get tax billionaires. But lawmakers will say, I live in rural Oklahoma District X and I drive on my roads. And someone recently said this, Apollo really nearly tore the front side of their truck off.

Emily Stacey42:08And they were like, we need to be honest with our constituents, although they're terming out this year, of course they're being honest right now, that if we don't pay taxes, these are the results, right? I'm okay with not paying taxes, but be wary of the results.

Emily Stacey42:20I was like, okay, then let's start talking about that at campaign trails.

Andy Moore42:23Exactly. And the reason we have these taxes is because we realized we need to find ways to collect revenue for collective goods. Exactly. Empires have fallen when they don't have enough tax revenue. That part.

Andy Moore42:38Right. That part. Right. And we are an empire.

Emily Stacey42:42And the Romans couldn't keep up their road system because they couldn't collect taxes.

Andy Moore42:47Heck, this country was founded in large part because we didn't wanna pay taxes back to the king. That's right. But we still wanted to pay, we wanted to pay local taxes to our local. Assemblies, yeah.

Andy Moore43:01Assemblies, thank you. We were not mad at paying taxes, we were mad at paying taxes to an entity that was not serving us. Benefiting, yeah, that's right. Right, right.

Andy Moore43:09Another thing I'd like to correct in our narrative, policy in America.

Anahita Ervin43:14So we're a no on 847. Oklahoma Policy Institute recommends voting no on 847. We rarely take stances, but yeah. And on 845 for your viewers if they don't catch the next podcast.

Andy Moore43:28That's right. Let's Fix This is also recommending people vote no on both these state questions. Hey, we're on the same page for once. We are, we're often on the same page. You gotta...

Andy Moore43:39Emily, I know you can't speak for your employer, which is great.

Emily Stacey43:41You never are. No, I speak for myself. That's right. We're good. We're good.

Andy Moore43:47Well, this has been illuminating.

Anahita Ervin43:50Sorry for getting too nitty gritty. Not at all. No, this is the listeners who listen will be the ones that. The takeaways are it doesn't cut your taxes. It slows the growth of property taxes. It will erode local services and might increase your taxes

Anahita Ervin44:03if bond issues are not paid for in time. Right.

Andy Moore44:05There's the summary. And one thing we didn't really touch on, because we're running out of time, My understanding is that 847 would also greatly negatively impact like first-time home buyers or anyone who buys a home because if you can't increase the property tax rate very much year to year, the time you can do it is during a sale.

Anahita Ervin44:27When the title changes hands, that assessment caps lift, your assessed value then equals your market value and then your property taxes skyrocket. Most home buyers compare the property taxes of the former homeowner and if you've owned your home for a longer time, that value is depressed. And so when it lifts, those new homeowners are shocked at the price and can't afford it because they weren't told. If lawmakers want to consider a policy for next session, one of them should be that real estate agents should have to calculate the new property taxes and be transparent in that for new homeowners.

Anahita Ervin45:01homeowners. But to be honest our current law at 3% does the same thing. Moving it to 1.75% will just make it worse. It'll make it worse. It'll entrench that even further. Right. An extra 2% a year adds up. Yeah. Yeah. This

Andy Moore45:14I mean you know we we bought a new house two years ago and I had that sticker shock when the next tax bill came. Yeah. I was like oh my gosh. Yeah. And it was just because of that reassessment. Exactly. But we were not prepared for that increase and so then the mortgage company's like, hey, your escrow account. Has to raise, yeah.

Andy Moore45:35And so we're like, well. Well, I didn't budget for that. Now I've got to come up with a couple of thousand, like $3,000. Absolutely. That's hard for anybody to do.

Andy Moore45:41And then you can see why people would be mad at that. And why they think property taxes are the issue. Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Emily Stacey45:47On a different, a future future episode. Future future. We should get someone talk about homeowners insurance.

Anahita Ervin45:53Yes, not me yet, I'm not prepared in that area. But that's where there is a ton of money because those rates were third highest in the country for property insurance rates. And there are ongoing lawsuits about this thing. So we'll talk about how to save some.

Anahita Ervin46:09The current commissioner is supposed to have a report out or something in regards to whether our market is competitive or not and keeps delaying it. And it might not happen this year. And he's leaving office.

Andy Moore46:22He's right. Yeah, the insurance commissioner race is, I think, a very important race. It is. Coming in that is not giving enough attention. But yeah, of the two things that make owning a home,

Andy Moore46:32there's lots of things that make owning a home very expensive. But the two main things. But those things that are variable year to year are insurance and property taxes. And insurance, the rates have been increasing very rapidly and the rates are higher already

Andy Moore46:45than the rest of the country, so. Yes, they are. Fun times. Yay. And with climate change, it'll just keep getting worse.

Emily Stacey46:52Great. For those that believe. And for those who don't, just watch your house to your... Right. I mean... Ah, gosh.

Emily Stacey47:00Well, this has been a fun time.

Anahita Ervin47:02I should come on, Merle. You should come on, Merle. Bring the good news with you. Oh.

Andy Moore47:07Anhita, thank you for joining us today.

Anahita Ervin47:09Thank you for saying my name so pretty. Well, thanks. I love it.

Andy Moore47:14Emily, thanks for being here.

Emily Stacey47:15Where else would I be? You know, anywhere else on a Friday afternoon. I mean... But this is the best place in here. Amen.

Andy Moore47:21Listeners, thank you for being here as well. Don't forget, there's an election coming up November 3rd and the election night show, watch party. It's a watch party for the rest of us. If you found this episode helpful, informational, entertaining even, please share it with a friend. Either send them the link or just tell them about it and say hey you should vote no on state question 847 and here's why if you want

Andy Moore47:46more information. OK Policy also has really great fact sheets on their website Okay policy.org. I'll link to them in the show notes and if you get our emails you will undoubtedly get them as well. They are also linked on our website and our voter hub at let'sfixthis.org slash vote. We also have long-form videos explaining the two state questions. You do. You can see Anahita on those as well, right? You can

Anahita Ervin48:08see me everywhere. Yeah. We are a real internet TV star just like Miss Rachel.

Andy Moore48:13Policy celebrity. Alright, as we say every week decisions are made by those who show up. Find a way to show up this week. See you next week.