— Nearly half a billion dollars may leave Muskogee each year with workers who drive to homes outside the county when the work day ends.

Statistics gathered by Action in Muskogee, which is an initiative to improve life in Muskogee, show 47 percent of employees in Muskogee County commute from other counties. Of those 47 percent, or 12,970 people, about 48 percent live in areas such as Tulsa — where the most commute from — Wagoner, Tahlequah, Sapulpa and Broken Arrow.

Although it’s impossible to know exactly how much those specific 12,970 people earn, the average salary in Muskogee is about $35,000.

Brien Thorstenberg, the business and economic development director at the Muskogee City-County Port Authority, which is leading the charge with AIM, agreed that could mean about half a billion dollars draining away from Muskogee County each year.

Some of those workers will likely stop for gas, a gallon of milk or have lunch while in town on business — retail sales that certainly boost sales tax revenue. But for the most part, their salaries are going toward mortgage or rent payments, property taxes, major purchases, schools and more in areas outside of Muskogee County.

So the challenge, say those interested in boosting Muskogee’s economy, is to get people who commute to Muskogee County for work to want to live in Muskogee, too.

“There are so many elements that go into what makes a person want to live and work here,” Thorstenberg said. “In my opinion, we won’t be able to attract 100 percent of those people to move here, but we can reduce that number.”

Action in Muskogee is the latest and largest push that could, over the long term, bring more people to Muskogee to live.

“The purpose of AIM is to make this a place companies and people want to live and work,” Thorstenberg said.

AIM’s recent development of important initiatives highlighted four areas as important to helping people decide where they will live: the school system, crime rate, housing opportunities and retail opportunities.

AIM co-chairwoman Lisa Wade Raasch said the coordination of efforts is key to the success of the project.

“These are collaborative goals that are good for the community at large,” she said.

Thorstenberg said that although leakage (a measure of retail sales lost by a community to a competitive market) needs to be “captured,” having a certain number of people commuting to work to Muskogee isn’t necessarily all bad.

When a company is looking at Muskogee to develop, it may consider the educational attainment of the available workforce, he said. In Muskogee’s available workforce, according to the U.S. Census, about 21 percent are college graduates.

Tulsa’s educational attainment of its available workforce there is higher, and a company looking to hire degreed administrators or engineers may consider it a boon that Tulsa is only a 30- to 40-minute drive for those potential employees and decide that Muskogee is a good place to build an industry.

Also, Thorstenberg said, although 12,970 people who work here don’t live here and probably spend most of their pay closer to home, about 11,000 people in Muskogee County commute elsewhere to work.

And about 14,000 live and work in the county.

AIM’s chairman, Timothy Faltyn, said he’s excited about the AIM project.

“I think Muskogee is already a great place. I just think we can do better,” said Faltyn, the president of Connors State College. “The more I participated in the discussions with AIM, the more I bought into it — you just start to believe, wow, this could happen.”



Education and retail opportunities



Retail opportunities in Muskogee are increasing with the addition of big-box stores such as Best Buy in recent years and smaller restaurant chains and clothing stores.

And Muskogee has a large retail area, said Alisha Tanksley, vice president of the Greater Muskogee Area Chamber of Commerce, who is charged with overseeing retail development for the area. Many smaller towns nearby rely on Muskogee for much of their shopping opportunities, she said.

However, the biggest amount of leakage from retail sales in the Muskogee area is in the grocery category, according to statistics provided by Tanksley.

More than $112 million a year is spent on groceries elsewhere by Muskogee residents.

Tanksley said that reflects the need for specialty food stores to fill a need and more variety of grocery store chains as well.

And most likely people do their major grocery shopping closer to home and want a great choice of stores near there.

Groceries are just part of the work being done in retail development in Muskogee, but schools are also something a family may consider carefully before moving to the area.

State records show that Muskogee County has schools that excel, such as Fort Gibson and Hilldale. But Muskogee Public Schools has suffered from a negative perception for a number of years because of test scores and dropout rates.

AIM has put the educational system on its radar for a committee of “champions” to begin digging into the perceived problems with the school district and find ways to help make improvements.

Wagoner County has the opposite problem. Darla Heller of the Wagoner County Economic Development Authority said the latest statistics available for Wagoner County were developed seven or eight years ago, although there has not likely been an appreciable change since then.

And 75 percent of people who live in Wagoner County work in some other county. In addition, Heller said, some towns such as Coweta see a lot of sales tax revenue go to other towns and counties.

“We do have almost the opposite problem,” she said. “They live here for the great school systems but don’t shop here and leave the sales tax here.”



Crime rate concerns

Crime reports may also be a reason people don’t choose to live in Muskogee.

Tulsa has 12 times as many violent crimes each year than Muskogee. Tulsa’s population, however, is about 10 times greater than Muskogee’s total of about 39,000. Violent crime rates are determined by the number of violent crimes each year per 100,000 people.

Muskogee’s violent crime rate for 2010 was much higher than the national and state averages.

Nonetheless, Thorstenberg said, what’s important isn’t so much the numbers as how people feel when they are in Muskogee.

“The question is, ‘Do they feel safe?’” he said. “Maybe with the AIM initiatives we can show some day that violent crime has been reduced by 3 percent, but will that actually make people feel safer?”

AIM looks at safety and security as its second most important initiative, below educational excellence and above a strong economy.

Some of the ideas AIM intends to pursue is reducing the drug cultures and availability of drugs, researching how cities with best practices in lowering violent crime operate, and deterring gang violence.



Housing availability

Muskogee has a large number of low-income or Section 8-based housing developments, but most are decades old. The city has 6,326 renter-occupied homes, making rent homes about 19 percent of housing available.

Based on the median home value, the average county property tax paid by a homeowner with homestead exemption per year is about $706. If less than half of the workers who live outside the county moved into the county and bought homes, that could mean an additional $3 million in ad valorem tax for the county, benefiting roads, schools and more.

Thorstenberg said there isn’t enough construction of new, mostly brick, reasonably sized and reasonably priced homes to attract buyers to the area.

Muskogee had 20 building permits in 2011, while Durant, which has the same poverty level as Muskogee, had 26. Bartlesville, which has a similar population but a higher income level and lower poverty rate, granted 95 building permits in 2011.

There has been some construction — but over the last few years, new homes available are all rentals meant for low-income, disabled or elderly residents.

Another complex of 48 two-or three-bedroom homes is in the works on the west side. But they will also have income limits imposed on residents.

Attracting builders may be difficult because builders may see Muskogee only as a place that badly needs low-income housing — especially since the Muskogee Housing Authority has more than 900 families already living in Muskogee on waiting lists for either low-income housing provided by MHA or Section 8 vouchers.

Reach Wendy Burton at (918) 684-2926 or wburton@muskogeephoenix.com.