The budget passed without controversy, and councilors, who spent the last month reviewing the mayor’s proposal, offered no amendments. Nor did the budget change substantively during the review process.
Councilors lauded Mayor Miro Weinberger’s sixth budget since taking office in 2012. They praised the mayor for maintaining city services while making new investments in public safety and infrastructure with only a fractional increase in the tax rate.
“As a result of years of work strengthening the city’s financial position we are now in a position to make new investments while holding tax rates to just 0.2 percent above what they were three years ago,” Weinberger said.
Making those investments without a major tax hike is possible in part because of a $625,000 federal grant to hire more police, and millions of dollars in infrastructure bonds approved by voters in November.
The municipal property tax rate for next year will be 0.7971 per $100 of assessed value, an increase of 0.0145 from last year.
City water rates will increase 3.2 percent, or 13 cents per cubic foot, to help pay for $3.2 million in new water and sewer lines. Officials say that work is desperately needed as a quarter of the system is over a century old.
Several councilors expressed concern about the rate increase, but none said it outweighed their support for the mayor’s budget.
“The investment is needed, but the costs are escalating,” said Councilor Sharon Bushor, I-Ward 1. “My water bill is almost as much as my heating bill and that’s significant.”
The budget includes $5.2 million to repave roads and sidewalks, which will triple the amount of sidewalks replaced over last year and double the amount of roadway paved — including repaving the Route 127 beltline.
Another $3 million will pay for repaving the waterfront bike path from North Beach to Colchester.
A U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services or COPS grant, will allow the Burlington Police Department to add five new officers by 2020, with 3.5 positions added this year. After the grant is spent, the city will need to come up with the $550,000 to pay their.
City officials have said they don’t believe an updated fair and impartial policing policy, which councilors passed Monday, will run afoul of a January executive order from President Donald Trump. That order directs the feds to cut funding to sanctuary jurisdictions, or those that refuse to comply with federal immigration laws.
The new officers will help the city maintain foot patrols in areas where drug crime has spiked in recent years.
The increased police presence is having a “huge impact on quality of life in the Old North End and downtown,” said City Council President Jane Knodell, P-Central District. Police Chief Brandon del Pozo has said those patrols aren’t sustainable without more officers.
Burlington will also hire three new firefighters, the first increase in more than 15 years, according to the city. Those positions will be paid for largely by savings on overtime pay, the mayor said.
The budget puts $500,000 toward a new early childhood learning initiative and will be used to make grants to child care providers that open up additional slots for low-income families.
Money for that initiative comes from $1.4 million in payments from city utilities, which used to go into the Burlington School District budget. In 2014, the state decided that practice ran afoul of rules preventing municipal revenue from going toward educational expenses.
For the past several years, Weinberger has used $500,000 of the utility money to help stabilize city finances. The rest of the money has gone toward programs that serve the city’s youth, such as paying the salaries of school resource officers employed by the police department.
The mayor has said, going forward, he would like the full $1.4 million to be used for initiatives that support young people in the city, but he rejected several proposals from the school district on the advice of the city attorney that they would violate state rules.
“It may well be some of what (district officials) want to see will be in that half-million dollar investment,” the mayor said at a recent Board of Finance meeting, referring to the early childhood learning initiative. The contours of that program are still taking shape, he said.
The city exceeded its goal of setting aside 10 percent of its General Fund budget, or roughly $6 million, in a surplus fund, leaving $2.2 million in one-time money for new investments.
Weinberger is using $600,000 of the surplus to overhaul the city permitting system, and $500,000 to make new investments intended to reduce the growth in health care spending for city employees.
Another $175,000 of the surplus will go into the city’s Housing Trust Fund, which supports investments in affordable housing projects. That money is on top of the annual appropriation, which the Weinberger administration has increased.
The surplus will also provide $60,000 in matching money to help a temporary warming shelter operate year-round.
The budget sets aside $77,500 from the General Fund to help pay for the Howard Center’s Street Outreach team, which works with people in crisis who typically have problems with addiction or mental health.
That money comes from the General Fund’s regional programs budget and could be ongoing if city officials chose to keep it as part of future budgets.
The Church Street Marketplace, which is a department of city government, will kick in $7,500 from its own budget, but that money will only allow the program to tread water. As the Burlington Free Press has reported, the Howard Center program faces a $200,000 shortfall.