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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
Eliminating property taxes would devastate crucial local services: Property values have increased nationally since the pandemic, leading to higher property taxes. This has created a financial strain on some lower- and middle-income households. The need for effective solutions is real, but eliminating property taxes – as some state legislators are pushing – isn’t the answer. In Oklahoma, property taxes account for 56 percent of local tax revenue and fund critical services like fire response, law enforcement, emergency responders, trash collection, libraries, and schools. While some Oklahomans do need help with rising property taxes so that they can keep their homes, there are more fiscally responsible ways to provide targeted relief without threatening the services every community depends on. [Aanahita Ervin & Sabine Brown / OK Policy]
Oklahoma’s mental health system is at a crossroad. Will we choose deepened neglect or compassion?: There are moments in public life when policy decisions unfold not as abstractions, but as ruptures in the lives of ordinary people. Oklahoma now stands in the midst of such a rupture. As the state’s mental health authority threatens significant cuts in its review of nearly 800 provider contracts — while withholding details of just how deep the reductions will go — one truth remains certain: residents will feel the consequences in ways too personal and too devastating to be tallied on any spreadsheet. [Kati Malicoate / Oklahoma Voice]
The challenge of reforming Oklahoma’s property tax: Representative Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee, has assumed chairmanship of the House Subcommittee on Finance after the resignation of former Rep. Ty Burns, R-Pawnee, and Fetgatter wants to look at lowering the property tax burden and finding ways to replace the revenue. He has certainly identified an issue deserving attention. Real property taxes are among the least popular taxes. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
Policy Matters: Indigenous Peoples Day should remind us that we’re stronger together: Each year, Indigenous Peoples Day calls on Oklahomans to reflect and learn from the first peoples of this land. It’s more than symbolic; it is a call to honor the strength, resilience, and living cultures of the 39 state- and federally recognized Tribal nations that make Oklahoma their home. At the same time, the day also asks us to look honestly at how we understand one another, particularly when state leaders misrepresent who Tribes are and distort the meaning of sovereignty. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
OK Policy in the News
45% of Oklahoma households can’t afford basic needs, financial hardship report finds: Nearly half of Oklahoma’s 1.6 million households are unable to afford the basics needed to survive financially, according to a new report that attempts to measure household hardship. The “2025 ALICE in Oklahoma: A Study of Financial Hardship” report was released last week by the Tulsa Area United Way in partnership with a national research initiative. ALICE — which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — is a valuable framework for understanding the true struggles and hardships that Oklahomans are experiencing, including hardships that are undercounted by official poverty measures. [Tulsa World]
- Read the report: The State of ALICE in Oklahoma
Weekly What’s That
Millage
Property tax rates (also known as ad valorem taxes) in most states, including Oklahoma, are set in mills. A mill is $1 in tax for every $1,000 in taxable value. For convenience in Oklahoma, a tax rate (the sum of all mills levied) is expressed as dollars per thousand dollars of assessed value. A tax rate of 80 mills, for example, would be $80 in property tax for every $1,000 in taxable value.
Each government sets its mill rate based on budgetary needs, subject to constitutional limits on mill rates and voter approval in most cases. Counties and school districts levy the highest mills and can assess separate mills for a range of different funds. Other entities levying mills are cities, vo-tech centers, community junior colleges, fire protection districts, emergency medical service districts, sewer improvement districts, and rural road improvement districts. Most recently, the Legislature in 2021 passed legislation allowing municipalities, with a 60 percent vote of the people, to create a public safety protection district funded through a property tax assessment of as much as 5 mills. County Treasurers review and approve the mill rates and prepare property tax bills that add up all the mill rates for each government to determine an overall mill rate for each property.
Millage rates in Oklahoma are commonly in the range of 90 to 110. These rates would result in a yearly tax bill of $900 to $1,100 on a $100,000 owner-occupied home.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“Clients have told me, ‘I pay my fees before I pay rent because I don’t want to go back to jail. I pay my fees before I buy food.’”
-Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma attorney Ed Wunch, who helps people involved with the justice system to get out from under court debt. [Law 360]
Op-Ed of the Week
Hunger is not normal. Housing must be part of the solution in Oklahoma.
Hunger is not a natural disaster. It is a policy decision. In a state that prides itself on neighbors helping neighbors, leaving families to skip meals is a choice we do not have to make.
If 1 in 7 cars on the road suddenly crashed, we would call it a national emergency. Hearings would be held, investigations launched and new laws passed to protect drivers. Yet when 1 in 7 Americans cannot afford to eat, we look away and call it normal.
Allowing hunger to persist not only is abnormal, it is unacceptable.
Oklahoma’s hunger rates are among the highest in the country. Close to 1 million of our neighbors, including 1 in 4 children in Oklahoma, live in food insecure households. This means parents skipping meals so kids can eat, seniors stretching prescriptions while cutting back on groceries, and students sitting in classrooms on empty stomachs.
There is nothing abstract about the pain and trauma associated with poverty and hunger. Hungry children struggle to learn. Hungry adults struggle to work and stay healthy. Communities that allow hunger to persist limit their own growth and future. Hunger is not inevitable. Communities choose whether to end it.
Charity is essential, but it cannot carry this alone. Every $1 spent in SNAP benefits generates as high as $1.50 in local economic activity. Ending hunger also means ensuring people can afford food in the first place. When housing costs eats first, the fridge goes empty. Housing costs that outpace wages push families to the brink, and households that are rent burdened are far more likely to experience food insecurity. Hunger and homelessness are connected. We cannot end one without addressing the other.
That is why federal, state and local lawmakers must act. First, protect and strengthen SNAP, WIC and school meals, and make enrollment simpler so eligible families actually receive benefits. Second, invest in affordable housing production and preservation, including supportive housing that pairs rent with services for people who need them. Third, restore and expand housing funds, modernize zoning and permitting to speed construction, and prevent needless evictions through mediation, short-term assistance and right to counsel pilots. Fourth, support work and caregiving with paid leave, affordable child care and fair wages so paychecks cover basics instead of forcing tradeoffs between groceries, medicine and rent. Finally, measure what matters. Set clear public targets for reducing hunger and homelessness, publish progress on a regular schedule and be accountable for results.
We should treat this with the urgency we bring to public safety. When a crash happens on Interstate 35 or the Turner Turnpike, emergency crews rush in, traffic is rerouted and leaders call for safety improvements. That same urgency should be applied to ending hunger, with immediate action and zero tolerance for delay.
If we would not accept 1 in 7 cars crashing on our roads, why do we accept 1 in 7 of our neighbors going hungry? Why also would we accept our neighbors becoming homeless? We should not. We do not have to. Hunger and homelessness in Oklahoma are not inevitable. The moment we decide they are as urgent as any other crisis, and that housing is part of the solution, we can end them.
Numbers of the Day
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701,452 – In Oklahoma, 701,452 households — 45% of households statewide — had income above the federal poverty level but not enough to afford the basics in the communities where they live. This group is known as ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. [The State of ALICE in Oklahoma]
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19% – A study of 21 states showed a 19% median decrease in fines and fees deposited into state general funds between FY2018 and FY2022. The year-to-year changes to fines and fees revenue adds more evidence to the finding that fines and fees are an ever-declining revenue stream and, therefore, risky for governments to use and depend upon. Yet it remains a consistently reliable source of harm to individuals who cannot afford to pay what is imposed on them. [Fines and Fees Justice Center]
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209,547 – The number of Oklahomans who received behavioral health services through the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services in FY 2024. These services — funded through Medicaid, state appropriations, grants, and federal dollars — rely on provider contracts that are now facing cuts, putting access to care for hundreds of thousands at risk. [Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Use Services]
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35% – The share of nonelderly adults enrolled in Medicaid who have a mental illness, including 10% living with a serious mental illness. These rates are higher than among adults with private insurance or no coverage — and deep Medicaid cuts under H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” could jeopardize access to care for millions. [KFF]
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62 – The number of Oklahoma counties (out of 77) where property taxes made up at least half of the local budget. With property taxes playing such a critical role, the state could not realistically step in to replace that funding without forcing deep cuts or shifting to more harmful revenue sources. [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy]
What We’re Reading
- Understanding the Working Class and the Challenges It Faces: The working class — defined here as workers without a four-year college degree — comprises a majority of the U.S. labor force and is more racially and ethnically diverse than the college-educated cohort. Members of this group are overrepresented in the service sector and often held in jobs with lower wages, fewer benefits, and greater exposure to economic cycles. Their challenges are compounded by declining union density and limited upward mobility, making policy strategies focused on organizing, job quality, and worker power crucial. [Center for American Progress]
- Sentenced To Debt: The Growing Fight Over Court Fees: Most jurisdictions charge criminal defendants some jail or court fees on top of any fines that serve as punishment. The fees’ supporters say they’re necessary to fund the jails and courts, and that taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for defendants’ crimes. But a growing group of activists, attorneys and legislators working to abolish these fees say they force indigent defendants to go without food and medicine or commit new crimes to find the money to pay them. Some even wind up back in jail simply for failing to pay their debt. [Law 360]
- The Twin Problems of Mental Health Care: Access and Affordability: Mental health care is uniquely challenged by dual barriers — many people cannot find providers they trust or reach, and many others cannot afford the services or medications they need. These obstacles persist across insurance types — including employer, marketplace, and Medicaid plans — so “coverage” alone does not guarantee access. Tackling this requires policy solutions that improve provider networks, expand affordability protections, enforce mental health parity more rigorously, and build capacity to meet unmet demand. [KFF]
- Medicaid’s Role in Mental Health and Substance Use Care: Medicaid is the largest payer of mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services in the U.S., covering over 20 million adults with such conditions and helping improve access to care. Enrollees under Medicaid are more likely to receive needed treatment than those with no insurance or private plans, especially for serious mental health conditions. Beyond direct care, Medicaid’s support helps reduce uncompensated care burdens on health providers and can moderate spending on other high-cost services by addressing behavioral health needs early. [Commonwealth Fund]
- There’s No Good Way to Pay for Property Tax Repeal: Eliminating property taxes altogether would create an enormous revenue gap for local governments, jeopardizing funding for schools, infrastructure, and other essential services. Replacing that revenue through other sources — such as higher sales or income taxes — would risk shifting burdens onto lower-income households and could distort housing markets or local fiscal accountability. A more balanced path is to reform property taxes rather than repeal them, using tools like circuit breakers targeted to income, levy limits to control growth, and assessment reforms to ensure fairness while maintaining the stability and efficiency of property-based revenue. [Tax Foundation]
