Oklahoma School Districts Sue Education Department Over Misappropriated Funds

Forty-eight Oklahoma public school districts are suing the Department of Education, the Tax Commission and the state treasurer’s office for millions of dollars of funds that have been misappropriated for 22 years.

The suit, filed with the State Supreme Court on Monday, claims that additional taxes collected from 1992 to 2014 in the 48 counties who brought the petition should have remained with local schools.

In the suit, the schools are seeking a court order to determine how much tax money was misappropriated and to recover said funds.

News 9 first reported on this back in December 2014. The law that led to the petition was an 11-percent cap on the assessment ratio for agricultural and commercial personal property. That would mean that any taxes collected above the cap would remain in the district.