Members of the River Infrastructure Task Force are certainly trying to get the most bang for their buck when it comes to the management of the endowment for a proposed series of low-water dams.
The trust that would oversee the dams in the Arkansas River will benefit from upcoming changes in Oklahoma's tax laws. The tax commission handles sales tax collections and charges an administrative fee of 1 percent to any entity levying a sales tax, as the trust will be set up to do. The fee drops to 0.5 percent July 1.
"This means more net dollars available to the project or operating purposes for which the sales tax is levied," said Bixby City Manager Doug Enevoldsen. "And that amounts to a significant sum over time."
The river task force is establishing the trust before a dam funding proposal goes to voters. Cities will likely name their trustees in a few months.
The trust managing the dam funds could use a split investment strategy.
The plan is to set up a nonprofit that can accept private donations and collect sales tax. City Councilor Phil Lakin said private money could be invested more aggressively, like it is at the Tulsa Community Foundation.
"We put those dollars to work so that we can grow them, and we're investing them into equities, bonds, mutual funds — those kinds of investments," Lakin said. "And over the long term, they've grown."
Any sales tax collected, however, can’t be invested that way.
"There are restrictions that come with the investment of public dollars," Lakin said. "So, the investment policies are very conservative: bonds, T-bills, those kinds of things."
The trust will have to provide an expected return. That won’t happen until those involved have a better idea what the mix of public and private monies will be.
