Published: October 13, 2008
Modified: October 17, 2008 at 10:42 am
Here’s an example — and good news — of a little form of financial carpooling.
Everybody gets a ride.
Does the school district in which you buy your car tag receive a larger portion of that money? Or is all the tag money prorated to the schools?
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Lee, Oklahoma City
Each of the state’s 530-plus school districts benefits from license tag fees, Lee, no matter where the tag was bought.
Paula Ross of the Oklahoma Tax Commission says money from tag sales is prorated and divided among the state’s school districts to be fair.
Years ago, she says, it wasn’t that way.
Until the late ’80s, only the district in which the tag was bought — or sold, depending upon which side of the counter you’re on — got money from the sale. You can see how lopsided that was, Lee, with large urban districts collecting the big bucks while a small rural district got a pauper’s share.
The larger, more heavily populated areas definitely had the advantage in funding, getting whopping numbers from property taxes, too.
But legislators and education officials worked to help even the playing field proportionately — and did.
While I generally would rather detour than talk about lawmakers, I have to admit, that seems to be one of the better things they’ve done.
By the way ...
Money from license tag fees obviously isn’t enough to cover expenses relating to schools and students in Oklahoma.
There are other sources to help. Particularly, ad valorem taxes and the state lottery have contributed significantly.
Enjoy your week and drive safely.
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Kevin, lots of the "spreading the wealth" going around in "fairly conservative Republican areas." Mostly "spread it my way." Have to admit most of those "high end cars" have Obama/Biden stickers. Could be "Oil Is King In Oklahoma and the King is Making Me Filthy Rich" Democrats.
As Edmond is a fairly conservative Republican area, surely Republicans would not be guilty of something illegal that would ultimately result in shortchanging their own children's education!
There seems to be quite a few Texas tags living in the Edmond area. These are often on upper end vehicles such as Lexus, BMW, etc.. What are we going to do about this?
Wait... an Oklahoman story not pandering to the road construction lobby? I can't believe my eyes. How many pundits have been printed here espousing the notion that we should take this money away from education and spend it on expensive infrastructure instead?
I notice a large, large number of out of state license tags dropping children off at our schools. Any way we can get these freeloading parasitic leaches to make their fair share of the contribution?
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