Wagoner County residents will be voting February 11th on a sales tax that would pay off a $13.5 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit involving the jail.

That, according to a growing number of concerned residents and business owners, is only one of the more visible symptoms of systemic mismanagement and possible corruption in county government.

[Hear the KRMG In Depth Report on a possible conflict of interest in Wagoner County HERE]

Recently, business owner Rebecca Olson announced plans to build a new business complex in downtown Wagoner (related story here).

As part of that process, she asked the Economic Development Authority for a grant to help purchase furnishings for what will be an incubator for new businesses, and they voted 5-1 in favor.

The next day, she tells KRMG, she had a phone call with the chairman of that economic development board, Chris Leffingwell, which she says centered on vague threats about criminal investigations.

Olson, it turns out, also just accepted a position on the Wagoner County Excise Board, which oversees spending by county agencies.

She checked with the attorney general, the local assistant district attorney, and the state auditor - all of whom said accepting the grant from the economic development board was perfectly legal, because her position on the excise board was unpaid, and because that board has only oversight duties.

So, she didn’t understand when Leffingwell called again, and again tried to persuade her that she could potentially be subject to a criminal investigation.

That’s when she got curious about Leffingwell’s own dealings with the county, and through a Freedom of Information Act request, she learned from the county clerk that Leffingwell owns two businesses, VIP Voice Services and VIP Technology Solutions.

Together, the two businesses billed the sheriff’s office more than $1.3 million since 2020.

But Leffingwell, Olson says, has oversight of the finances in the sheriff’s office, and presents those expenditures to the excise board for review.

“I’m not an attorney, and again I will preface this that I am brand new in this role,” she told KRMG, “but to me, as a business owner, and one that does a lot of work with nonprofits, there’s a huge conflict of interest with that.”

KRMG reached out to Leffingwell, and spoke with an employee at VIP Technologies who said he was unavailable, and he has not responded to our request for an interview.

[Hear the KRMG In Depth Report on a possible conflict of interest in Wagoner County HERE]

Meanwhile, Wagoner County voters will go to the polls February 11th to vote on a proposal to hike the sales tax in Wagoner County to pay off a massive $13.5 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit involving the county.

Businessman Brent Watson, also a CPA and tax expert, tells KRMG he’ll vote against raising the sales tax.

If the measure fails, property taxes will go up instead, but he says at least those will come back down once the debt is paid.

He’s also concerned that sales tax lands hardest on those least able to afford an increase in the cost of living.

Watson says the county assessor believes the property tax would pay off the debt in 10 years, whereas sales tax option would take closer to 15 years.

He’s also deeply concerned that more lawsuits are pending - including another wrongful death lawsuit involving sheriff’s deputies.

The real problem, he says, is bad government.

“We have a problem with our sheriff’s office,” he told KRMG. “We can’t afford more and more of these lawsuits.”

He said there’s no mechanism for a recall election, so he’s not confident that anything will change soon.

But, he added, it needs to.

“We have a systemic problem in Wagoner County with our government,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have good people in our government. I think we have a good assessor, we have some other good folks. But we have a problem with the sheriff’s office and the county commission.”