Voters living in the newly annexed stretch of the Oak Grove Fire Protection District have approved raising their property assessment from 7 mills to 10 mills, a move the district says will pump an estimated $313,495 a year into construction of a long-planned third fire station. The measure passed 1,980 votes to 746.
The vote, reported by News On 6, applied only to registered voters living in the area annexed into the district on March 4, 2025. Property owners in the original Oak Grove district already pay the 10-mill rate and will not see any change under the new assessment, according to the same report.
One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value, so the 3-mill bump works out to an extra $3 per $1,000 in assessed value for property owners in the annexed zone. The district said it sought the increase to settle a dispute that had lingered since the annexation went through: the station's report notes district officials expected newly annexed properties to carry the same 10-mill rate as the rest of the district, but the Wagoner County Treasurer applied only a 7-mill assessment instead, a decision the county District Attorney's Office backed even as the district's own legal counsel disagreed.
Board Chose the Ballot Over a Legal Fight
Rather than take the disagreement to court, the Oak Grove Fire Protection District board decided to put the proposed increase before voters instead, per the same account. The Wagoner County agenda for a March 10, 2025 commissioners meeting lists an “Order for Annexation to Oak Grove Fire Protection District,” according to Wagoner County records, though that document alone does not spell out how the rate dispute would ultimately be resolved.
The additional revenue is earmarked to help finance a planned third fire station — called Station 3 — along with other district expenses, and to fund its construction and ongoing maintenance. District officials say the estimated construction cost for Station 3 has climbed from $3 million in 2025 to approximately $4 million, a jump they attribute to inflation and rising material costs.
Passing the assessment increase does not by itself authorize construction or lock in financing for the new station — those decisions still require additional approval from the district's board, News On 6 reported. The district projects that once built, Station 3 could cut travel times by at least seven minutes in certain areas near the station and to its south and east, compared with current response times from Oak Grove's existing Station 2 or Broken Arrow's Station 4.
A Department Still Scaling Up
The assessment vote caps a stretch of rapid change for a department that was until recently entirely volunteer-run. In March 2025, more than 69% of voters approved annexing part of eastern Broken Arrow into the Oak Grove Fire District, according to KJRH, which reported the expansion was expected to move the department from an all-volunteer operation into a combination department with full-time firefighters. A 2025 expansion plan from the district proposed building the third station near the 29700 block of East 71st Street, with the goal of putting most of the new coverage area within five miles of a station, News On 6 reported separately at the time.
KJRH also reported that Oak Grove was preparing to bring on its first full-time firefighters. At the time, the department had 35 volunteers and two full-time positions; it had handled fewer than 600 calls in 2024, with nearly 1,000 expected in 2025.
Accounts differ on just how much ground the district now covers. KJRH reported the department covered about 30 square miles before the expansion and that the annexation would roughly double its coverage area, while Oak Grove Fire's own website states the department covers approximately 70 square miles across the eastern unincorporated areas of Catoosa and Broken Arrow. The figures may reflect different service-area boundaries or time periods, and the discrepancy has not been resolved.
