Southwest

Voters handily approved a request last week for $90.5 million of general obligation bonds by Oklahoma County Independent School District No. 52. The measure passed with 81% in favor from the more than 4,300 voters going to the polls.

The chairman and co-chair of a state tax reform panel last week urged the group to support a gradual elimination of Oklahoma’s personal income tax.

The local chapter of the Americans For Prosperity anti-tax group is challenging Wichita’s plan to provide $30 million of incentives and bonds for a downtown hotel project.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration is preparing a package of lower taxes and regulatory reforms that could serve as a national model, the secretary of the Kansas Department of Revenue said last week.

DALLAS - Little Rock, Ark., voters approved an increase in the sales tax rate Tuesday that will generate $196 million for capital improvements over the next 10 years and $32 million a year for operations.

DALLAS - The Arizona Transportation Board has switched lanes to adjust to market conditions, planning to substitute a senior-lien excise tax revenue bond issue for a subordinate-lien highway revenue bond sale that had been expected this week.

DALLAS - Laredo, Texas, an unlikely home for professional ice hockey, is expanding its role in minor-league sports with a baseball stadium financed with $11.3 million of sales-tax revenue bonds.

Texas sales tax collections totaled $1.98 billion in August, the highest monthly total in three years, Comptroller Susan Combs said last week.

Voters in the Boerne Independent School District will decide Nov. 8 on a three-part, $87.8 million general obligation bond package set for election last week by district trustees.

Trustees of San Antonio’s Harlandale Independent School District voted last week to waive attorney-client privilege so its law firm can cooperate with the Bexar County district attorney in a probe into a school bond program.