Remarks by Les Simpson
96 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 4
- Play at 43:02
“And we had the budget all put together, raises, all that. And then now we have another $2.5 million.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 43:20
“And then you said that we are looking at about $61.4 million of no new tax revenue, property tax if it comes in.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 43:33
“And then how much did we have budgeted in the budget to receive?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 43:47
“But what we have built, and then we factor in sales tax. So the good news is for taxpayers is... This no new tax rate can pay for what we've got in the budget.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 44:03
“Okay, so that sales tax putting it over and then this new calculation of the no new tax revenue rate means the budget that we proposed can be completely covered. Yes, sir. And keeping the no new tax revenue rate on property tax.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:01:58
“So in this truth and taxation form, we have to give you a number. and then you do some computations, and then you give us a number back that goes in the Truth in Taxation form?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:02:21
“Fortunately, I have not. Okay. Go ahead. Okay.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:03:46
“Have you encountered anything like this before with other taxing entities or having to verify? We have.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:04:15
“So I guess when you're doing your computations, you may say, hey, this is what it looks like, and they want more money or whatever. There's a disagreement on what the figure is.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:05:48
“Right. And I guess, and has the city ever come before in a kind of a, I mean, maybe a discrepancy before to try to resolve with you? Or is this kind of the first time that this has happened as far as you remember?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:06:22
“Would this particular issue be a one-time mistake, or could there have been some issues that we had previously that we just never followed up on?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:07:07
“So really the mistake this year was just the miscalculation of the debt.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:07:21
“And then just walk me through one more time how the error occurred on the debt part of it.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:13:13
“This is a simple question, but I think since I've got... Your tax rate, whether it goes up or down, that's not the way to figure out if people are paying more taxes. Is that correct? So tax rates can go up, but your property taxes could go down. So would you say a tax rate would be the best way to determine whether we're collecting enough tax or not enough tax? I mean, there's another factor that goes into it, correct? Which is the values of the property. So if you're trying to do, I'm seeing this comparison being made, but we've had several years where we've gone down on our tax rate, but…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:15:27
“Well, I do have one more question about the budget, if I may. I wanted to ask, kind of focusing on reserves. So I was looking at our employee health insurance reserve, which is $6 million. And the last four, so a reserve just for education's sake, we have reserves. What are those reserves for?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:16:15
“But for a variety, I mean, we probably have 8 or 10 or 12 different funds that have reserves. And then we have ways that we determine how much reserve we should put back in each of these.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:16:27
“I guess we have... Are these all policies? Is it staff determination? How do we determine what the reserves are?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:17:14
“Yeah. But basically, the reserve is set back for emergency purposes. Yes. Correct. And across the board, we have 60, 90, 100, and there's formulas. So my question is, when I go back and look at our health care claims, I've got, according to the budget, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, health care increase over the last four or so years has increased about 33%. It may be 32% or 31%, but would you disagree that we've seen significant increases in our health care costs over the last three years?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:17:49
“I'm talking about what we have budgeted and to pay out in the budget. For claims. Health care expenses, yes. A third would probably bid. So I guess my question is, why has the reserve for health care stayed at $6 million? In fact, I think this year, we're budgeting less than $6 million, $5.76 million, when it would seem to me that as health care costs increase, would not our reserve increase?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:18:33
“Well, yeah, because I got that information as well that you sent to me, and I think what our consultant said is generally a reserve target is 60 to 75 days. Yes, sir. And I think I was told that we are 48 days.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:18:50
“So is our reserve just something that we go off a consultant telling us? Or is there not a city policy or a council policy on those health care reserves?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:19:14
“Yeah, well, and it looked like we ended up this year with about, I mean, when I look at, let me see here, when I look at what I was, you know, if we were to go to, I don't know, 60 days, we're about 1.7 million shy. I mean, at 48 days, if you take 6 million, divide it by 48, and you add those additional 12 days, much less if you add another 25 days of that. So my concern is, do we have enough setback for that. I know it's a reserve. We hope not to use it, but it seems like it's a little lower than it, than it should be.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:20:17
“Well, it just seemed to me, again, are we going off with the consultant? To me, I could see where, okay, as costs increase, our reserve needs to increase.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:20:34
“I would say that. Here's the other thing is, and again, this is just me looking at it, so I could be wrong, and most likely hopefully I am, but I'm looking at fleet service, and I'm just taking off what's in the budget and kind of what we're stating in the budget where we're where targets are, but it looks like fleet services may be below its stated target reserve. Risk management could be below after transferring, I think, about $3.7 million out of that fund. So I guess what I would like to see maybe hopefully on the 22nd, before we adopt this budget, can we get kind of a simple schedule for…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:22:12
“Yeah, because I just don't think we need to be depleting our reserves. I mean, that trend could wind up being a real problem. So if we could kind of just get an update on where we are, whether we would need to change anything in this budget. or at least look at changing something in future budgets to make sure we have the appropriate amount of reserves set aside.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026