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Candidates for Oklahoma County assessor, treasurer and District 3 commissioner participated in a recent forum hosted by NonDoc and News 9 at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. 

We used public records, news archives and interviews to fact-check some of the candidates’ remarks.

Funding concerns are at the forefront of Oklahoma County races this year. Voters in the county will decide whether to approve a new sales tax to fund the construction and ongoing operations of the county’s troubled jail, an issue that divides the candidates. Oklahoma County’s budgeting process has been plagued by a series of high-profile bookkeeping errors this year. And the county faces a more than $7 million budget shortfall.

The candidates: 

• Larry Stein, a Republican and incumbent county assessor
• John Gibbons, Democratic candidate for county assessor
• Christie Miller, Republican candidate for county treasurer
• Jessica Thompson, Democratic candidate for county treasurer
• Jessica Clayton, Republican candidate for District 3 commissioner
• Jennifer Mayo, Democrat candidate for District 3 commissioner

Claim: There’s no plan for a new sales tax to fund the county jail on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Mayo said: “We have no idea what the sales tax is going to go to, how much it’s going to cost, how big this jail is going to be.”
Fact check: Mixed

Oklahoma County is asking voters to approve a new 0.40% sales tax over the next 25 years to help close a funding gap to build a new jail. 

A county bond advisory board recommended holding a countywide vote on the sales tax proposal, provided that additional construction costs for the jail not exceed $605 million, and its size not exceed 800,000 square feet or 1,800 beds.

Oklahoma County commissioners voted in August to place the tax proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot, though the proposition doesn’t include the guidelines that the advisory board recommended. Brian Maughan, District 2 county commissioner, told The Frontier that state law limits the amount of information about the proposal the county could include on voters’ ballots. But he said meeting minutes reflect county commissioners’ goal to adhere to the oversight board’s recommendations. The sales tax is supposed to generate about $600 million over its lifespan, but Maughan said the total cost of the jail will depend on “fair-market value,” which is difficult to predict. 

Oklahoma County commissioners also approved an implementation plan in August outlining uses for revenues from the sales tax, if it’s passed by voters. The plan prioritizes building the new county jail, but it also funds existing facility operations, and diversion and behavioral health programs.  

Mayo said in a written statement to The Frontier that discussing a proposed bed count in a public meeting “does not make it a legally binding commitment.” She also said that the implementation plan doesn’t provide details like specific percentages or dollar amounts for how the projects listed will be funded. 

“It does not establish financial feasibility, demonstrate project readiness, or provide a clear path to completion,” Mayo said. 
-Ari Fife

Claim: There was no missing money when the Oklahoma County Clerk’s Office discovered there were millions in available funding that had been left out of the county budget due to a bookkeeping error. 
Miller said: “Please understand that there was no missing money. Our office knows where every dollar is. We know what fund it’s in. We know what bank it’s in. It’s invested. Every dollar is actually invested, and then we also have it collateralized. We do our bank reconciliations. These were budget projections, and they were just miscalculated more than once.” 
Fact check: True

An independent audit from State Auditor Cindy Byrd’s office released earlier this month confirmed there was no missing money and discrepancies in reported amounts of the county’s available funds were due to accounting errors.

Oklahoma County Clerk Marressa Treat said in April that the county had $14 million in additional funds that hadn’t been previously reported due to a bookkeeping error. County officials later said that figure was off by about $11 million. 

Even with no money missing, the county still has a multi-million funding gap this year.
-Brianna Bailey

Claim: The Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office reduced the value of Gibbons’ house in Nichols Hills to salvage, saving him about $10,000 in property taxes. 
Stein said: “Mr. Gibbons had a renovation on his house. We reduced the value to salvage, saving him about $10,000 in property taxes because he was renovating the house.
Fact check: True 

In 2024, Gibbons’ home had a market value of $415,000 with $2,566 in taxes, according to the county assessor’s property search website. In 2025, when Gibbons was renovating, the market value was $88,325 with an estimated tax of almost $1,400. In 2026, the market value increased to $744,500 with an estimated tax of $11,500.
-Kayla Branch

Claim: The county assessor’s office valued Gibbons’ home at $1 million. 
Gibbons said: “I recently bought a house and renovated it, and the assessor’s office came up with a value of a million dollars on my house. I knew that they didn’t do an assessment because they drove by and took a picture of the outside of the house, but the dumpster was still in the yard.” 
Fact check: False

The Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office placed the market value of Gibbons’ home at roughly $744,000 in 2026, not $1 million. Gibbons said he misspoke and meant to say the county had assessed the value of his home based in part on a comparable home nearby that sold for over $1 million. 
-Kayla Branch

Claim: Every day, Oklahoma County jail staff save five to 10 lives due to overdoses. 
Clayton said: “Every day, they save five to 10 lives due to overdose.” 
Fact check: Mixed

Clayton said she got the information during a recent meeting with a jail health official, but the figures were from over a year ago and do not reflect the current situation.

A jail medical official told the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority on Oct. 12 that staff had administered three doses of Narcan over the past month. Jail and medical staff administered 11 doses of Narcan for the month in September and six in August, according to data provided by the jail. 

“I appreciate the opportunity to correct the record,” Clayton said in a statement. “My intention was never to mislead, but to highlight the important work being done by detention center staff. Their success in reducing overdoses from 5–11 per day to just three in the past month is significant and deserves recognition.” 

Jail officials also released a statement confirming Clayton’s account and said staff have worked hard to reduce overdoses at the facility over the past year.
-Brianna Bailey

Claim: Oklahoma City has had to make cuts in recent years due to lower-than-expected sales tax revenue.
Thompson said: “I’m going to speak for Oklahoma City because it takes up a large portion of Oklahoma County, but in Oklahoma City, the sales tax has stalled over the last few years, where the city itself has had to make cuts to departments because they didn’t actually get the amount that they thought they would get.” 
Fact check: True 

Oklahoma City cut or froze some positions as part of its 2027 budget due to slow revenue growth. The city asked police and fire departments to reduce their budgets this spring by 1.4%, while many other city departments saw a 2.4% reduction. Oklahoma City’s largest single source of revenue is sales tax.
-Brianna Bailey

Claim: Oklahoma County has not experienced problems with its budget process until this year. 
Stein said: “When you have a problem in one of the offices, you identify it. You get the forensic audit done, and that’s what we did when we found out about it. And we’re going to find out what we’re going to do to fix it. But it’s worked for 30 years, and nobody’s had any problems until this year. And the only difference is the person who’s in the clerk’s office.”
Fact check: Mixed

State auditor reports found multiple accounting discrepancies for Oklahoma County in 2023 and 2024.

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, the State Auditor and Inspector’s Office issued a finding of “lack of internal controls over the financial statements and disclosures.” While the report noted that the Oklahoma County Clerk’s Office had been without elected leadership between June 2022 and April 2023 owing to the resignation of David Hooten, the finding was repeated in the following year’s audit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024 — more than a year after Maressa Treat had been sworn in as clerk. Stein said his general point was that “we never had anything like this happen” for decades.
-Tres Savage

Rating system: 
True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence
Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details 
Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information 
True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context 
Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details 
False: A claim that has no basis in fact