State lawmakers have filed thousands of bills ahead of Oklahoma's 2026 legislative session. Threaded among those bills are two priorities that seem to be at odds: cutting property taxes and improving education outcomes for Oklahoma schoolchildren.
The root of the tension lies in Oklahoma's tax structure. In addition to state and federal appropriations, property taxes account for a significant portion of the public education budget in Oklahoma. And Oklahoma's average spending per student is already the third-lowest in the nation.
Republican lawmakers have filed proposals to make additional investments in early math and reading intervention programs and to cut the state's constitutional property taxes. But it's unclear how lawmakers intend to fund new education investments if they also opt to slash the taxes that pay for them.
Property taxes within local county jurisdictions are among the largest sources of income for local school districts in Oklahoma (approximately 40%, according to the most recent federal data).
State (another 40%) and federal appropriations (about 20%) are appropriated for things like extra special education and English as a second language instructors and math and reading tutors, among other items, like professional development and teacher retention initiatives.
Some Republican lawmakers, like Sen. Shane Jett of Shawnee and Rep. Jay Steagall of Yukon, hope to settle the matter outside the walls of the Capitol.
They, along with former state Rep. Mike Reynolds, filed State Question 841 late last year. The question could eventually be put to a vote of the people; if passed, it would eliminate taxes on primary residences for everyone in Oklahoma by 2029. Supporters hope to gather enough signatures for SQ841 to appear on the midterm ballot in November.
Seemingly in response, lawmakers have introduced a flurry of bills with targeted property tax exemptions for homeowners above a certain age, veterans and first responders, among others.
Senate Joint Resolution 30 by Sen. Micheal Bergstrom, R-Big Cabin, is among the nearly dozen measures aimed at reducing property taxes in Oklahoma. It proposes a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes for people 65 and older and to freeze increases on property tax rates statewide.
The resolution would also make property taxation a statutory matter, rather than a constitutional one. The change would make property taxes easier to get rid of without a majority vote of the people, while allowing counties to keep some control.
Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, is a former Tax Assessor for McClain County. She said she supports the movement to reduce property taxes, having filed several pieces of legislation around the issue last year that carried over.
But this year, she said, she's mostly watching from a distance.
"You'll see a lot of panic property tax bills filed this year," Sacchieri said during an interview in her office last week. "It does feel like it's a topic that a lot of people don't understand fully…the impacts when you start pulling and taking away and not understanding where all of it feeds into."
To cut property taxes in one move, Sacchieri said, essentially means to break the local funding scheme for public education and county government infrastructure.
"Property tax, 80% of it, roughly, is going to go to public education, between public ed and CareerTech," she said. " A remaining 10 would go to county services, and the other remaining 10 would be like libraries, EMS services, fire districts, things like that."
Senate Education Committee chair questions property tax cuts
Last week, the Senate Education Committee unveiled a plan to focus on teacher retention and early math and reading interventions for public school students. The agenda sparked questions from reporters about the implications of a property tax cut on that goal.
Committee Chair Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, responded with a tinge of frustration at the idea of cutting property taxes via State Question 841 without a plan to replace the funding those taxes provide.
"That plan proposes to take 4 or $5 billion out of the public school system," Pugh said. " I have not seen – It's one page long – a plan to replace it with anything."
Pugh said in his experience, it's not the property taxes that are bleeding Oklahomans of their money, but climbing home insurance rates.
"What I found is when homeowners across the state of Oklahoma are looking at their mortgage statement and their escrow, here's what they're frustrated about: It's not their property taxes," he said. "It's their dang insurance costs that continue to go up and up and up and up."
Statewide tax reform can no longer be ignored, Pugh said.
"And so, we're going to talk about property tax reform because we should," he said.
Sen. Sacchieri said she agrees with Pugh on that point. She said some of her colleagues in the legislature think some kind of consumption tax would suffice for lost revenue from property. She doesn't think so.
"You're talking about the most local and reliable tax that you are cutting," Sacchieri said. "So to replace it, you would need to replace it with something like it. But there really is nothing like it."
Still, she said, constitutional tax reform in Oklahoma is long overdue, and she's excited at the prospect of lawmakers finally figuring out a better tax system if the state question passes, even if it's because they have to.
