THACKERVILLE, Okla. ― Many southern Oklahoma communities will head to the polls for elections Tuesday, but controversy surrounds the school bond issue in Thackerville. Shelby Levins has more.

Thackerville will be voting on the future of their public schools on Tuesday. School leaders say they have outgrown their current facilities and that now is the time to build a new high school, but some area taxpayers and property owners are not ready to see the increase in property taxes that would bring.

Longtime Thackerville rancher Jimmy Rains says he and other area residents first heard about the $4.6 million bond issue to build a new Thackerville High School last week. Rains says the property tax increase would hurt many local farmers.

“It’s not that we don't want a betterment of the school, it's just the economy right now and that big of a tax increase on what few landowners there are would be devastating,” Rains says.

Rains has owned his ranch since the 1940s and went to the Thackerville Schools himself. He says with current crop prices and the drought, now is not the right time to introduce a new tax levy on property owners.

But school leaders say the lagging economy is driving down prices and that now is the time to act.

"The interest rates are lower than what they've been and probably we will see in a long period of time. Also, construction costs are now down,” says Thackerville Schools Superintendent David Herron.

According to Herron, the $4.6 million series bond would increase property taxes by a little more than 38%. It would be in effect for the next 13 years to finance the new construction.

If the bond issue passes, it includes replacing the schools’ gym, which was built in the 1960s, with a new gymnasium that can hold almost 600 people.

Rains says he understands the school needs more room, but he says the taxpayers of Thackerville need more time.

“I hope they'll wait, give it some time and let the people talk about it, and weigh things out.”

Thackerville will vote on the school bond issue on Tuesday.

For a complete list of elections in southern Oklahoma towns set for Tuesday check the related stories below.