DALLAS - Voters across Oklahoma turned down more bonds than they approved at local elections on Tuesday, rejecting $207 million in proposals while endorsing $126 million of school and other municipal debt.
Failed ballots included $68.5 million of school bonds and $138.5 million of city and county bonds. Successful outcomes included passage of $33.6 million of school bonds and $92.7 million of city and county debt.
Ron Fisher, a financial adviser with Stephen McDonald & Associates, said the large proportion of failed school bond issues is an aberration.
"The election results from Tuesday are bucking a trend," Fisher said. "We had elections in March and April where 80% of the school bond packages passed."
"Some of those that failed this time were districts that currently have no debt on the books, and it is always harder to pass bonds in those cases," he said. "But I don't see that the voters were scared by the economy, because the economy is not much worse than it was in April when most issues passed."
"I think it is more of a function of which districts were holding elections this time around," Fisher said.
Oklahoma County voters narrowly approved a $55 million general obligation bond issue that will allow the county to acquire an abandoned General Motors vehicle assembly plant and lease it to Tinker Air Force Base as a consolidated maintenance facility. The vote was 52.7% in favor and 47.3% opposed.
County voters also approved $10.5 million of bonds for courthouse improvements and $6 million for flood control projects. Bond measures turned down in Oklahoma County include $5.8 million for a county government record storage facility and $7.3 million to build a new cooperative extensive service facility.
County Commissioner Ray Vaughn said he was pleased with the election outcome that had the county prevailing on three of the five bond questions.
"We had some very worthwhile projects on the ballot," he said. "The voters realized the need to protect the largest employer in the county [Tinker AFB] and saw the value of preserving the courthouse."
Vaughn said he expected the county to issue the Tinker bonds between mid-August and late September.
"We're already in the process of finding an underwriter so we can get those bonds sold," he said.
Oklahoma County's GOs carry an underlying rating of Aa2 from Moody's Investors Service.
Tulsa County voters rejected a $76 million GO proposal for Tulsa Community College, with 55% opposed, as well as an increase in the college's property tax rate for operations to 7.7 mills from six mills.
The two-year college planned to use the proceeds to add, expand, and renovate classroom space for new and existing programs at its four campuses.
Lauren Brookey, the school's vice president for external affairs, said voters apparently were deterred by a slowing economy.
"We believe the economy was the 800-pound gorilla in the room," she said. "We had never lost a bond election in this school's history, but when we were putting this together 60 days ago we saw some problems in the economy starting to show up. Gas and food prices just kept getting worse."
Brookey said a low turnout also contributed to the defeat.
"We were the only question on the ballot, and we think that hurt," she said.
Some 22,000 of the county's 347,000 registered voters cast their ballots, a turnout of less than 7%.
Voters in the Oklahoma City suburb of Norman barely rejected $49.5 million of bonds to build a new library and parking garage. The measure lost by 280 votes out of more than 12,500 ballots cast.
Norman voters approved $11.2 million of bonds to remodel the existing library and two municipal buildings to create a larger senior center and provide space for court and city offices, but those projects can't go forward until a new library is built.
Voters in the Washington County town of Bartlesville approved an $8 million bond issue for road projects and a $2 million bond issue for park improvements.
Successful school bond elections included $9.8 million for the Carter County Independent School District No. 32, $9.5 million for the Lincoln County Independent School District, and $9.7 million for the Grady County Independent School District.
Unsuccessful school bond elections included $33.5 million for the Comanche County Independent School District and $15.3 million for the Oklahoma County Independent School District No. 53.
