Mayor Miro Weinberger’s newest budget proposal, if passed by the City Council, would cut some funding to the Burlington Police Department and invest in more social justice work.
Weinberger’s latest budget proposal, details of which were released on Friday, came just days before the council is required to ratify a new budget for the upcoming 2021 fiscal year.
The Burlington City Council is open to cutting funding to the department, but it’s unclear just how much they will. Meanwhile, thousands of people have called into recent city meetings demanding cuts, and at times abolishment, of the police department, as pressure has mounted nationally to scrutinize police funding and policies.
The mayor’s latest proposal would put $1 million into the racial equity and justice fund to expand the work by recently hired Tyeastia Green, the city’s first director of racial equity, inclusion and belonging, according to the mayor’s resolution. Originally, the fund was only slated to receive $300,000, according to an accompanying budget memo.
In his daily media briefing earlier on Friday, Weinberger said the increased funding will enhance the new department.
“I expect the fund will result in new investments in economic opportunity and cultural empowerment,” Weinberger said. “And I see a further strengthening of this new Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Department that is being funded out of this new fund as well.”
Additionally, the mayor’s latest budget proposal would put $250,000 toward considering “further changes” to the city’s police department, according to his resolution. Portions of the fund will be used to complete a comprehensive “operational and functional” assessment of the department.
The new budget also freezes Burlington police officer staffing levels where they are, meaning all currently open officer positions will not be filled until the assessment is complete, the resolution states.
The language leaves an exception to hire a new police chief; the city recently delayed the search for a replacement for former chief Brandon del Pozo. If staffing drops below 85 officers, the department could hire to bring the number up to 90 officers, under the resolution.
Other changes to the department include placing the salary of the sole crime analyst under the Department of Innovation and Technology budget, as well as moving parking enforcement to the Department of Public Works. But, the movement of parking enforcement to DPW is not actually accounted for in the hard budget numbers as it will take more work to iron out the “logistic and accounting issues,” according to the budget memo.
The department will also have to work to trim $121,000 from their budget and the chief administrative officer for the city will be directed to identify a little more than $1 million in other cuts to the department.
Weinberger said earlier in his daily media briefing this latest budget is “responsive” to increased calls for changing how policing is done.
“The budget is also going to very much respond to this moment created in the wake of the tragedy regarding George Floyd, and in the wake of the millions of protesters and demonstrators who have come out and made it clear that the status quo cannot continue, that there has to be progress on racial justice,” he said.
However, Weinberger offered words of caution to city councilors and Burlington residents as they consider the next steps for the city’s police department.
“Even as we examine this, I think we have to stay cognizant of the officers of the Burlington Police Department who put themselves at risk day in and day out to protect us. They need to know the community supports them,” Weinberger said. “I think we risk doing real damage to that good department that has served the city well for so long.”
Savings from deferred ambulance purchase
Weinberger’s latest proposal also states that no currently open jobs within the city will be filled without the approval of the chief administrative officer.
The mayor has also offered to take a 10% pay cut for the upcoming year.
More money was also saved, the proposal states, by deferring the purchase of a third ambulance for the New North End as well as hiring the six new firefighters needed to run the new crew, until March 2021.
This measure is still in the works, Weinberger said earlier Friday, as the Burlington Firefighters Association still needs to ratify the agreement. However, according to the budget memo, the mayor has agreed to hire more firefighters that the department asked for.
In total, the deferment will save the city $205,000, according to the memo.
Weinberger also noted in his briefing that his latest budget plan will not lay off or furlough any city employees. The latest tax and transaction reconciliation indications show the city’s budget shortfall for fiscal year 2021 has dropped from $10 million to $8.2 million.
“I’m not saying that you will not notice any impact on services,” he said. “There will be impacts on operations, but at the same time, fundamentally, we have preserved all city services, which was not always clear it would be possible.”
Additionally, Weinberger said the city will not implement voter-approved tax increases of about 5%, as well as the Housing Trust Fund increase or public safety increase due to the already increased financial pressures on Burlington residents due to Covid-19.
The City Council is slated to deliberate and vote on the new proposal this week. According to the city’s charter, the council must adopt a budget before July 1, the start of the 2021 fiscal year.
School resource officers
During the briefing Friday, the mayor also said that based on Thursday night’s 7-5 school board vote in favor of keeping school resource officers in Burlington schools, the topic will need further discussion.
“From what I could tell it was a very divided board. I think we need a little time to know exactly where this discussion is going,” Weinberger said. “Clearly now the school board is very divided on this.”
Weinberger also said advocates have made a compelling case about the problems with “programs like this,” at least at the national level and with the added layer of further debate on the police department’s budget it calls in question the future of SROs.
“I think there’s some real questions about whether this program is going forward,” he said. “And I think for the school resource officers to return there’s going to have to be a new consensus around the program, which clearly doesn’t exist now.”
