Nearly 50 Oklahoma school districts are asking the state supreme court to compel the state education department to determine how much it underpaid them by miscalculating state aid for nearly 22 years and to recoup overpayment that was incorrectly awarded to other districts.
The lawsuit centers on a state law that allows counties to tax commercial and agricultural personal properties between 10 percent and 15 percent. The counties that levied taxes higher than 11 percent could keep the revenues generated above that threshold for their local schools.
Instead, the suit argues, the state used those revenues in the general fund when calculating state school aid.
