Monroe reports highest tax collection rate for FY2025, introduces 20 new hires and lists service anniversaries

At the Sept. 9 meeting, Finance staff told the Monroe City Council that the payments division helped the city reach its highest tax collection rate on record for fiscal year 2025: 99.57%, up from 99.35%, staff said.

Lisa Strickland, speaking for the payments division, said staff reached out to residents to arrange payment plans and to notify people about outstanding bills. "We're excited that fiscal year 2025 brought the highest collection rate the city has ever seen. It was at 99.57%, which is up from 99.35%, a really significant increase," Strickland said.

Human resources presented roughly 20 new hires for July and August 2025. Lisa Hallowell introduced the list and photos, and named staff across departments including parks and recreation, finance, police, facilities/property management, and water resources. Noted hires in the presentation included Timothy Pappas (Dowd Center theater operations supervisor), Shakyma Brown (Winchester Community Center supervisor), Jason Puckett (communications supervisor), Brian Simpson (warehouse clerk and buyer), Nicole Master (police officer 1, sworn in the following day), Carter Price (facilities maintenance worker 2) and several lifeguards and fitness instructors.

The council also acknowledged service anniversaries for September 2025, including Myron Clark (airport, 10 years), Brandon Love (engineering, 15 years), Catherine Walters (parks and recreation, 15 years), Catherine Howard (police, 20 years) and Christopher Westover (police, 20 years), among others.

Council members welcomed the new hires and congratulated staff on the collection-rate improvement. The personnel recognitions and the finance update were informational; no procurement or hiring votes were recorded during the meeting.