By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Writer
Piedmont’s sales tax revenue and staff shortages could improve this year as the city government reaches for its new year’s goals.
Sales tax revenue is siphoned by Oklahoma City thanks to the busy retail and office strip along Northwest Highway, just beyond Piedmont’s city limits.
As city officials grapple with its shoe-string budget, the city council and City Manager Jason Orr have set their hopes on developing a downtown business district to attract new business and plan to lobby for new tax law changes.
Orr said Piedmont is one of many small towns that is crippled by the state’s structure of city revenue.
“Oklahoma is the only state in the nation that forces municipalities to rely on sales tax revenue,” Orr said. “Others in other states collect income tax and raise ad valorem taxes.
We have to find a way to pay for infrastructure needs. With all these new developments coming in, we just had another request for another 450-home housing subdivision and that’s going to be increasingly demanding on our roads. We just don’t have it (funds).”
Lawmakers are getting an earful from small town leaders through the Oklahoma Municipal
League (OML), Orr said. He and Acting Mayor Bobby Williamson is up for a possible nomination to the OML board.
“I think that effort is gaining momentum,” Orr said. “I did speak with the governor and met him at the OML conference. I did mention that to him and he’s well aware of that.”
If one of them is appointed to the OML Board, they plan to continue that conversation and keep an eye on other pieces of legislation that could harm or benefit towns like Piedmont.
“I think it gives us a voice at the table more than anything else,” Orr said. “It’s not necessarily going to benefit us financially, but they do a lot of work at the (state) Capitol with legislators. I think a lot of times legislators come from various backgrounds and don’t necessarily understand the municipal side of legislation they’re passing that could hurt municipalities. OML works directly with the legislature on the issues we’re facing.”
While the wheels of legislation grind slowly forward, the city council has its own ideas on how to attract retail and restaurants to town.
The council ended its contract with consultant Rickey Hayes, owner of Retail Attractions Inc, after members said they wanted to go in a different direction and that they were unhappy with the results of his efforts.
“We’re going to start the downtown development district this year,” Orr said. “Hopefully we’ll see some new businesses come to town and increase sales tax revenue for us. We will hold public meetings to gather input to see where that area could be located, and what it might look like, just as we did with the comprehensive plan.”
Public meetings may be scheduled late winter to early spring.
The season will bring a new mayor to town, but the fiscal woes will not change as it is forced to add staff on top of the long list of road repairs. Orr said he will have to hire an additional public works employee.
“We’re severely understaffed in public works to take care of streets, parks and meter reading activities,” he said. “We will have a parks and recreation employee to oversee the new community park and help out with public works as well.”
The park bathrooms were shut down during late summer after feces was found repeatedly smeared on the walls and floor of the men’s and women’s bathrooms. Orr said the city shut it down in part because they do not have a parks employee to maintain the facility.
Piedmont police and fire have been concerned with another point of frustration with the phone service to dispatch. Calls to 911 are often cut short either because dispatch cannot hear the caller, or the caller cannot hear dispatch. Piedmont Fire Chief Andy Logan and Orr had hoped to resolve the issue with the AT&T service provider, but it seems the trouble may end up costing the city money.
“We think it might be the internal phone system because it’s sort of an antiquated system,” Orr said. “As with anything else it costs a lot of money…looking at $30,000 to replace it. We want to make sure to get a reliable system to solve our problem. We don’t want to waste $30,000 if it’s not going to solve our problem.”
The city has entered into a contract with Industry Systems for an IT person to oversee the acquisition of a new system.
