BURLINGTON — While Burlington’s City Council elections are receiving most of the attention, voters will also be considering a series of ballot questions on Tuesday’s Town Meeting Day.
Voters will be considering a school budget that if approved would lead to a 7.4% property tax increase. They will also vote on a proposed 3.5% increase to the city’s tax rate to operate an ambulance in the New North End and an increase to the city’s Housing Trust Fund.
School Budget
The school board unanimously approved a $91.5 million budget for fiscal year 2021 that will lead to an expected increase to the property tax of 7.4%, a higher increase than previous years.
The overall budget is a 3.1% increase over this year’s budget. Superintendent Yaw Obeng said in January that the district’s budget would have gone up 11% if the district carried over this year’s programming.
Growth in wages, health insurance, special education costs and debt service has lead to increased costs for the district. The board cut $695,000 from the budget and applied a $1.3 million surplus from previous years saved from lower central office costs and savings in heating and lighting.
“We thought this would not be well-received by the community and wanted to find some strategies that would maintain our quality programs while at the same time, be acceptable and viable to the community,” Obeng said.
[Read VTDigger’s comprehensive voter guide to this year’s Burlington City Council elections.]
The cuts included eliminating the district lead principal position and in-house counsel position, and reducing estimates for city retirement fund, special education funding and health insurance costs.
For a taxpayer living in a house assessed at $250,000, the tax increase is expected to be $357 a year. The increase for those paying on based on income, the increase will be 3.18%, meaning a person who makes $50,000 a year will pay $38 more next year.
Public Safety Tax Increase
Voters will also be considering a 3.5% increase to the city’s tax rate to pay for a 3 cent increase to the public safety tax which will fund the operation of an ambulance in the New North End.
The council unanimously supported the increase, which will pay for nine new firefighters to staff the new ambulance. The increase would be the first increase to the city’s public safety tax since 2005.
The addition of the ambulance was a part of the last collective bargaining agreement between the city and the firefighters union.
Mayor Miro Weinberger wrote in a memo to the council that while taxpayers already face a high burden, he believed the new ambulance was necessary.
“I believe that Burlingtonians greatly value the responsiveness of our ambulance service, and I support this proposal as the only fiscally responsible option for maintaining such service,” Weinberger wrote.
Housing Trust Fund
Voters are also considering an increase to the city’s Housing Trust Fund, increasing the tax to 1 cent per $100 of property value. The council voted 10-2 to put the increase on the ballot, with Council President Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4, and Councilor Ali Dieng, D/P-Ward 7, voting against it.
The Housing Trust Fund assists the city’s housing nonprofits build more affordable housing, and since its creation in 1989 has attributed $5.9 million to preserve 1,689 homes, according to the city.
Voters approved the 1 cent for $100 of property value level in 1989, but under the charter the tax could not be increased with increases in value in citywide reappraisals. Because of an increase in property values, the rate was adjusted down to .54 cents per $100 in 2006.
The change would generate approximately $390,000 in revenue for the Housing Trust fund and allow the 1 cent per $100 of property level to grow with inflation over time.
Local Election Dates
The final question on the ballot extends the availability of local ballots so they become available at the same time as state ballots, 45 days before elections.
Local ballots are currently only required to be available 20 days before the election. State law requires that requests for absentee ballots be fulfilled immediately, so individuals ended up getting mailed state ballots and local ballots at different times.
Absentee local ballots have been returned at a lower rate than state ballots, and this charter change aims to address this discrepancy.
