Remarks by Les Simpson
96 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 4
- Play at 1:59:41
“So our goal today is, today is our deadline to vote on a not to exceed. Correct. I would say this, because I've been hearing a lot of discussion going around the community, and people say, boy, our tax rates are low. And look how they compare. But I asked this question earlier today because the tax rate is only a portion of the equation. Property values are the other part. And what really matters and why I wanted to focus on this, what matters is how many dollars are we taking in? Because when we take in more dollars than we did before, that's a tax increase. Somebody's got to pay for it.…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:03:08
“That is in the form of a motion, if you don't mind, and then we can second, and then we can have discussion, and then maybe determine where we're going.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:10:53
“I don't want anybody to imply that I'm not in favor of giving raises. I'm supporting a budget right now that does exactly that. But I'm just saying there's other factors that come into play on this. I don't want anybody coming out and saying, oh, Les, don't want to give anybody raises. I do. I realize that. But now we're talking, you know, it's like we found out last week at our Tuesday meeting, wow, we could get some more money. And instead of saying, wow, it's like, oh, can we go spend it? Well, this budget that we all agree to could be now funded without having to increase property taxes.…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:11:55
“But the sales tax doesn't factor into the tax rate. No. That's a whole separate rate. I'm just saying the property taxes, I mean, let's just go to property taxes first.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:12:14
“so when we do the no new tax revenue rate that's an additional eight hundred thousand dollars and eight hundred forty three thousand four hundred thirty seven that majority has been built in already that some property tax owners are going to have to pay yes so yeah okay so it's eighty thousand and then but just in last week we found and this is what i brought up before you know when we went into this budget now we're now we're finishing much better on sales tax My whole issue is why can't we provide more property tax relief and we could still be able to do this budget.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:12:51
“Oh, I've made my proposal. I mean, I understand that. some things can come up, but I'm just focusing on a budget. We've got the opportunity with this robust sales tax with $43 million of money that's been freed up. I'm thinking, man, at least one time we could look at the potential of being able to do this. I think the budget, it is what it is. I understand we have other needs, but at some point we're going to... That's probably one of the reasons why the governor wants to get involved in this. It's just being able to look at it. Because, you know, a property tax is, I mean, I don't have the…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:18:04
“I don't think we're hamstringing ourselves. We're just taking one option off the table. There are other options.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:18:17
“But this would not be the only option. There could be other options if we wind up, if something comes up.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:18:30
“So if problems come up, we could seek somewhere else other than the taxpayers to solve the problem.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:22:04
“Well, all I'm saying is I'm not approving a ceiling above the no-due tax revenue rate. Not now, not in the future. Well, that one's already been burned. If we need it, we can find it somewhere else. So for me, I don't see how it doesn't make sense. But that's just me.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:58:44
“What are we forecasting? Because it seems like, I don't know, sales tax got revised. But how much more sales tax are we saying we're going to bring in versus budget in 25-26? Because the version I had, I guess the original version before we found the million dollars, was about 5.6. 5.6 additional? compared to what we had in the budget.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:59:19
“So in sales tax, we collected $9 million more this year than we thought we were going to collect, which is a good thing. And we're saying we're not going to lose that $9 million next year. Right. We're carrying it over and saying we'll bring in 3% on top of that. So we got in $9 million that we had not budgeted anything for. Yes. And we're going to add to that next year.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:59:49
“Well, I think this is exactly the direction that we need to head. I mean, this new information is very unfortunate, but the good thing is we've got sales tax. We've got sales tax that we did not think was going to come into our pocketbooks. We had not allocated it. And so for me, having that sales tax instead of the property tax next year can still, I think, help provide a property tax relief. Because we've had $9 million that we had not planned on that. That was unbudgeted. That was free money for us to spend. And I guess we've either spent it or we're going to sweep it up at the end of the…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:00:32
“Well, I think a solution to our problem here, if we still want to provide property tax relief, is we've got the sales tax.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:01:09
“It went in this year's budget. This year's. Yeah. What I'm saying, we got $9 million more this year. We never budgeted the expenses for it. We had that. We could use it for whatever. and now we're increasing it next year.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:22:52
“Not necessarily. No. I mean, it could come from anywhere in the budget.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:31:10
“Yeah, I mean, you know, I apologize. We're probably the most frustrated I've been in three years. And I understand that we didn't run it, but we talked about it on the first day. And, you know, this really puts us in a bind up here. And I want to do the best I can. But also, when you look at the history, and I've set up here and I've raised people's taxes. And you want to know how much I've raised them? The budget approved from the time I took office, property taxes, according to my, and I could be wrong, we've raised them 26.6%. That's 16% on M&O and almost 75% in INS. And we had to do those…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:36:37
“I understand that the form is frustrating, but what's frustrating is that we just didn't run the numbers the both way when we were talking about this. during budget. Understood. That's frustrating. And I would think that we, I know we maybe have never used that scenario before, but, but if you go look, take out rate, take out appraisals. If you look at how much money we're getting more property tax every year, somebody's paying some more money, maybe not across the board. We're in this budget has us taking more. property tax with the rate that was put in there and increased. All I'm saying…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:40:28
“Well, I think the decision to make on the 8th, which I think has to be made on the 8th, is that correct? So we have a deadline to meet.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:40:37
“So the question is, is council comfortable with the voter-approved tax rate, which only means that it's a rate that cannot exceed? I guess we can come down. Or are we more comfortable with the no new revenue rate? I mean, that's the two decisions. That's the choices. Or is there another choice?”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 3:41:12
“So you need a direction on what that rate needs to be in order for it to be published and be out there.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026