I have a few requirements for the cms system I am looking for.

I would like a cms that allows multiple templates and has a simplify templating system. The html pages are already laid out and ideally I would like to just place template tags inplace of whats there.

Does such a cms exist? I have considered Wordpress but templating that will more time then I care to invest.

Try XOOPS, it works the way you want. It uses .theme.html file with some special tags as template, so you can modify it easily.