Glasgow City Council “talks numbers” at Monday meeting

The Glasgow City Council met the evening of Monday, March 11th, staring down an intensively economic itinerary, with items of business being the presentation of the city’s 2022-23 audit, and the second reading of an ordinance to raise insurance premium fees.

None of the council was absent as Glasgow Mayor Henry Royse called the meeting to order. The first item for the council was the results of the city finance audit, Jeffery Carter, a representative of Taylor, Polson and Company, who was responsible for conducting the audit, approached the council. Carter assured the council and public present that, in the interest of time, he would attempt to be brief and would be covering the highlights of the report, rather than exploring each line item.

Once the report had ended with “no issues” Royse encouraged Councilman Terry Bunnell, who chairs the city’s finance committee to comment on the report, as the finance committee had met that same day. “If you’ll look at our budgets and our actuals,” Bunnell began. “We’ve had a very good year, this has been the first year we’ve recognized our occupational license fee and we’ve seen that impact in our budget.” Overall, Bunnell summarized the finance committee’s meeting positively, stating that the numbers point to an efficiently ran operation. With no further discussion, Carter left the podium, thanking the members for their business with the firm.

The next item of note was also the most discussed of the evening, that is the ordinance increasing the insurance tax premium fee assessed by the city of Glasgow. Before the council heard from Nick Hurt, occupational tax administrator, the city attorney Rich Alexander offered a “layman” explanation of what the ordinance would effect.

Councilman Max Marion was the first to speak, “This ordinance will only be effecting small business, this will not be effecting small policies or individuals” he asked.

Royse confirmed that Marion’s summation was correct, and then directed the council back to Hurt, with Royse saying, “He (Hurt) has been involved in this, if there are questions you have here in the discussion phase.”

Councilman Freddie Norris asked Hurt if could give the council a “simple example” on how this increase would reverberate with an individual. “I’ve been in meetings with several insurance companies,” Hurt said. “Because I wanted to tell you exactly how it will effect citizens.”

Hurt explained to the council, that he had ran an experiment using Glasgow’s information for one insurance quote, and the information of a comparable tax jurisdiction for another quote. “The other jurisdiction is at 7 percent, while we are at 2, and the premiums on both are exactly the same, ” he said. “This whole ordinance is charging a fee to the insurance company, not the customer.”

Hurt did concede that different companies, could react pass this increase on to its customers.

Councilman Bunnell spoke up again to offer further insight into how the ordinance would influence the city. “We’re trying to be fair, never be equal but we want to be   fair,” he said.

Bunnell reinforced what Hurt’s findings suggested, saying, “We’re low, comparatively speaking.”

Bunnell also emphasized that the ordinance was part of a beneficial plan for the city to diversify its tax revenue so that, “If we were to have an issue or crisis, we don’t use all of our revenue sources as opposed to having one source, in a time of crisis, and have a large increase.”

Councilman Marion was the first to offer a dissenting opinion, with concerns that the rise in cost would absolutely come at a cost to citizens, citing his personal experience as an insurance agent.

With all discussion finished the council began their vote on adopting the ordinance. Ultimately, the ordinance was passed 6-3 with Marion, Kirkpatrick, and Marlin Witcher voting against the measure.

Rounding out the end of the meeting, several council members reminded members of local events and upcoming opportunities for community engagement. The meeting was promptly adjourned around 7 p.m. with the next meeting to be held on March 25th.