Remarks by David K. Leigh
244 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 9 of 10
- Play at 25:05
“Does that earn interest? Yes. Okay. So if we move it left pocket or right pocket, it'll still earn the same interest. And the interest it earns goes to debt service or does it go to- Goes to debt service.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 29:25
“Was there some of the safety grants? That starts in... Or is that... This is... The terms was contributing to potential safety grants?”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 30:24
“And like one of the actions tonight was basically rescinding one of those. So that would then come out of the library. Absolutely.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 30:35
“Yes, sir. So not to go down a rabbit hole. So as we make transfers to these capital funds, we see the balance of the tourist fund, the beginning balance, the income, the expenses and the end. But when we make transfers for roofs and air conditioners and trucks and capital projects, those are somewhere else. So this is not all inclusive of the cash balance. These are just the formal funds.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 31:06
“Is there a way we can get that in a snapshot so we can kind of at least keep pulse on this is, you know, these are the transfers coming in. These are our expenses. So that way we can kind of get it because we end up having these other funds. Right. Under these funds.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 31:34
“It would be good because all of that stuff gets buried. It just would be good to have this as an addendum to the budget documents, at least for council. Because we end up having those questions ourselves. That would help.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 34:40
“Well, there's a water usage above the sewer kind of cap, and so it's basically, it's probably saying we're not having the water as much now, and so they're, you know, so.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 36:26
“I would call those servers, not data centers. Those are servers.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 38:35
“I think, honestly, all these funds that I was referring to, if we just added, like we do some of the others, beginning balance, expenditures, you know, just to show, here's what we started with, here's what we'll do, and sometimes we'll draw it down, sometimes we build it up. It's like for fire trucks, right? Those kinds of things. Yeah.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 40:39
“All right. Well, that is a, uh, that was the received the presentation. Uh, so that's no action needed on item seven. So next item on the agenda is call for a public hearing on the city of Belton fiscal year, 2027 proposed annual budget. A lot of this stuff. You just heard me read. I will read it again because I think it's official. required to do in the minutes. This budget will raise more total property taxes than last year's budget by $1,194,804, or 9.13%. And of that amount, $286,488 is tax revenue to be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year. The impact statement for…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 41:53
“So this is calling for the public hearing. We are recommending September 8th, 2026 at 530 to be that public hearing. The chair would entertain a motion to call the public hearing.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 42:08
“Second to call the public hearing for the city of Belton fiscal year budget to be September 8th of 2026 at 530 here at Harris Community Center. Any comments or questions about the public hearing? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Passes unanimously. Item nine, discuss and consider a proposed property tax rate, the 2026 tax year, fiscal year 2027. I'll pause right here just for those who need, not familiar with this. What we do is we adopt a proposed rate, which is a rate that we have to set that basically sets the bar. We cannot go above it, but we can go below it. So while we may be…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 46:25
“And this is net of those that have full exemptions or- Correct. Okay. This is taxable value.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 49:55
“Well, yeah, let's, for just a second. The state, the other subdivision of the government that helps govern citizens in Belton, the state, out of their benevolence, have granted veterans, disabled veterans, exemptions, and they are now exempting personal property tax on small businesses. which is paid for by the local taxing authority. Yet they put restrictions on us on being able to compensate by going up on our rate. And they also do not reimburse us to make us whole. So these are not statewide exemptions. These are local exemptions that your local elected officials are granting. I just want…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 50:58
“It's almost $1.3 million in exemptions for military veterans. And I think it's a good program. I do. It's just unfair for those places, I don't know, Highland Park, that don't have that, where places like Harker Heights, Nolanville, and Belton do.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 51:50
“In the local municipal town. Yeah. By the neighbors.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 52:37
“If they're going to put these yeah, or don't pass those, let the local if they're big on elections, have a local election where you could have. An exemption and then a corresponding tax increase to go with that exemption. Um.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 53:22
“But, but our, but our general fund property tax ad valorem tax revenue is around $10 million. This is roughly 10% of that. yeah you got if you look at it no if you look at the bottom it says total taxable value 2.5 million dollars i mean five billion dollars of that 2.24 right it's 10 percent yeah 10 percent of our ad valorem tax is exempted for that one particular class yes to get to of our net”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 54:02
“No, they want 10% to also include all your other revenues, which are fees and sales tax and all those others.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 55:42
“I'm sorry? Or new exemptions taken away.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:02:44
“Yeah. So help me, I'm going to ask a rhetorical question, but it's not. So help me understand how no new revenue, right, So you said that these rates are based on the appraised value times the rate. And the appraised value times the rate should... So if appraised values go up, our effective rate goes down. If appraised values go down, our effective values go up. So what you would hopefully see is from one year to the next, that delta would be zero, right? But the delta is negative. And it's negative because...”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:03:36
“No, I think the thing is, you would think on the no new, whatever the no new revenue rate, that that would be calculated based on, well, 263 times a rate that's going to be higher is going to be a change from the prior year of zero.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:03:54
“Yes. That's what the definition, when you read their definition, that's what it is.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:04:00
“But that's not what it is because they took out a lot of exemptions that impacts that number. And now everybody else has to pay more, but we don't get credit for that. I'm just saying, even the way that the math is stacked up is against the local municipality from an optics standpoint. Reality is we got to pay bills. We got to pay for firemen. We got to pay for police. We got to pay for streets. But they changed the math to make it look like we continue to dig deeper into folks' pockets when the state has done so through exemptions. Anyway. I just, it's difficult math. Why isn't it just zero?…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:05:55
“One more question. One penny on the tax rolls brings how many dollars?”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026