The Burlington City Council Monday night postponed action — again — on a plan to address what Mayor Miro Weinberger and acting Police Chief Jon Murad say is a “staffing crisis” in the city’s police department.
Council members also reviewed the fiscal year 2022 budget proposal for Burlington’s school district that pitches a $3.6 million increase. Residents will vote on the budget March 2, Town Meeting Day.
Murad told councilors in December that police force numbers have been dwindling quickly after the council passed a 30% cut to the department’s staffing this summer, following nationwide calls to “defund the police” and reallocate money to racial justice initiatives.
The BPD had 91 officers in the summer and that number has dropped to 79 as of January. Murad raised concerns that if the police force drops to 76 officers, the department will no longer be able to provide emergency service between 3 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. He proposed to hire community service officers and community service liaisons — unarmed, civilian positions that would respond to lower level needs and chronic issues like homelessness and drug addiction.
This week the Weinberger administration asked the council to raise the current 74-officer cap to 84. The proposal, laid out in the “Public Safety Continuity Plan,” allows for the hiring of four to 10 community service officers and three community support liaison positions. It also dedicates $150,000 from the general fund to pay for the new roles.
But a vote was postponed until the council’s next meeting, prompted by a motion from Councilor Joan Shannon, D-South District. The motion to postpone passed 10-2, with Councilors Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, and Ali Dieng, I-Ward 7, voting against.
Shannon said “there are some discussions happening at this point” that could inform how members vote on the proposal. She added she didn’t think some councilors were ready to make a decision on the plan. Progressive councilors Zoraya Hightower, Ward 1, and Perri Freeman, Central District, both said they welcomed additional time to reach consensus.
The council also shot down a proposal from Dieng to put the question about raising the cap to voters. The resolution failed 11-1, with Dieng providing the sole yes vote. While Dieng thought the public should be able to provide input on the fate of the department, some councilors said the ballot question would be confusing for voters and undermine the body’s decision-making authority.
The postponement of the proposed Public Safety Continuity Plan followed an hour and a half of public comment. During that period, former city councilors Jane Knodell and Kurt Wright called in to back the Public Safety Continuity Plan and point to a letter of support, signed by former mayor Peter Clavelle and 19 former city councilors from different political affiliations. The letter was also signed by former Senate Pro Tem Tim Ashe who served on the council from 2004-2007.
“We recognize that public safety is more than just policing and agree there should be robust debate with how policing and public safety generally can be improved,” they wrote. “At the same time, abandoning reliable 24-hour service does not meet basic public safety standards, nor does it advance a responsible conversation about reform.”
Many residents called in to express their opposition to the plan and said the original cuts to the department were just, given that many marginalized residents fear interacting with a department that disproportionately polices and uses force against people of color.
“Police do not make our city safer for the most marginalized of us,” said Burlington resident Lilla Fortunoff. “When we’re thinking about what’s scary for Burlingtonians to not have police patrolling the streets, that is coded language for it’s scary for white Burlingtonians.”
Weinberger expressed fierce opposition to the council’s decision to postpone action on the police staffing proposal. He said it was “stunning” to see that the proposal wasn’t being moved forward, or debated, after receiving letters of support for the plan from Murad and the citizen oversight Police Commission.
“It is shocking to me, frankly, that this council is not racing to take action tonight to approve this plan that has been developed and that clearly moves us in the direction of police transformation,” Weinberger said. The proposal will be taken up for a third time at the council’s Feb. 8 meeting.
School budget increase
The Burlington School Board and Superintendent Tom Flanagan explained to councilors that the $3.6 million increase to its 2022 fiscal year budget comes as a result of Covid-19 pressures and the relocation of the Burlington High School, after high levels of carcinogens were found in the building this fall.
Before the presentation of the Burlington School District budget, Superintendent Tom Flanagan said the district faced two “generational challenges” this school year that led to budget increases: the pandemic and the discovery of PCB chemicals throughout the Burlington High School building, which required relocation to the old Macy’s department store in downtown Burlington.
He said the district did the best it could to reduce the impacts of these budget increases on taxpayers. The district was first expecting to meet a $5.7 million budget increase. That figure was brought down to $3.6 million through cuts that were made to operational budgets, not educational programming, Flanagan stressed.
“We feel like we developed a good budget that really balances keeping programs and getting tax rates down as low as possible,” Flanagan said. He said the first tax projections the city received put increases at 13%. The district worked to gradually decrease that rate to arrive at 6.88%.
“So we did a lot of work to get where we are,” Flanagan said. “If we have to go back at it, we’re going to be impacting programs for kids.”
According to the district’s hypothetical projections, the proposed budget would result in a 6.88% property tax increase and a 6.47% income tax increase. For a home worth $250,000 in Burlington, owners are estimated to see a $5,497 tax, which is a $353 increase from the current rate. A $50,000 household income is estimated to see a $1,331 tax, which amounts to an increase of $81 compared to the current rate.
The total budget amounts to $95,105,000, which is a 3.5% increase compared to the current fiscal year budget.
