As Burlington’s March 1 city elections approach, Mayor Miro Weinberger is pitching his second attempt at a capital bond that would update aspects of the city’s infrastructure, after voters rejected a more expensive version in a Dec. 7 special election.
On top of that measure, Burlington voters could get the chance to vote March 1 on a separate bond aimed at redoing portions of the city’s downtown.
To pass, the downtown infrastructure bond needs a simple majority of votes, while the capital bond — since it puts the city’s credit on the line — requires a two-thirds approval.
Before the proposals get to voters, however, city councilors must first endorse the initiatives. And given the discussion at Monday night’s City Council and Board of Finance meetings, not all councilors are fully on board.
After Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger released an outline of his new, $25.9 million capital bond proposal, Councilor Ali Dieng, I-Ward 7, asked the mayor to examine what dropping the item to $20 million — half of what the failed December bond asked for — would look like.
“I’m just talking from the point of selling it for the voters of Burlington. … I would love to see that,” said Dieng, whose New North End ward more squarely rejected the December bond than other city precincts.
Weinberger and other supporters of the capital bond have touted it as necessary to prevent more costly infrastructure upgrades down the road. That message has been countered by some taxpayers who, still reeling from a hefty increase in the value of their homes, want the city to spend money more sparingly.
Voters may also be hesitant to approve more infrastructure projects without a better sense of what the city’s anticipated new high school will cost. City Council President Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, told VTDigger that officials plan to bring that item before voters in the November 2022 general election.
The mayor’s $25.9 million proposal would cut out millions of dollars that the previous bond requested for city parks, buildings and information technology systems.
The new bond would also reduce the funds flowing to Memorial Auditorium, a condemned civic center on Main Street, from $10 million to $1 million. The lower sum marks a shift in strategy for the mayor; instead of trying to save the building, the money would simply be spent on stabilizing it until a more ambitious proposal is considered in spring 2023.
But on other initiatives from the December bond, the mayor did not budge, proposing an equal allocation for items such as sidewalks and a new emergency radio system for the police and fire departments.
Weinberger’s new plan also raised the amount dedicated to obtaining federal grants from $3.5 million to $4.5 million, citing the windfall of available money from a federal infrastructure package passed last year.
If the bond is passed, Burlington residents would see tax increases until it is paid off in 10 years, officials forecasted. For the owner of a home listed at the city’s median value of $379,100, the tax increase would kick in at $35.77 this year and peak at $88.73 in 2024.
In addition to a possible tax increase stemming from a bond vote, Weinberger floated a higher property tax rate to pay for the proposed city budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which at $90 million would be roughly 3% more than current spending.
Property taxes — which mostly fund the school district but also give cash to city government — have historically climbed alongside growing school costs. But this year, since school officials have the funds to forgo a significant budget increase, Weinberger has recommended upping the municipal side of the tax calculation by 5.8% from last year, meaning a roughly 1% increase in the property tax rate overall.
The initial budget plan expects Burlington’s non-tax revenue — the money collected from parking meters or event fees, for instance — to come in at pre-pandemic levels. Still, Weinberger suggested that the city set aside $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds in case those coffers don’t fill up.
The plan would also begin to make the $1.9 million the city spent on equity programs last year part of its regular budget. The expenditures — which included beefing up the city’s Department of Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging — have so far been entirely paid for with federal money, but Weinberger recommended putting them on the city’s tab roughly $630,000 at a time.
After laying out the plan, Weinberger received blowback from Tracy, the council president, who misconstrued the mayor’s presentation as a proposal for cutting funds from the equity programs.
“It seems problematic to me, and in fact maybe even an extension of white supremacy culture, to be highlighting the racial equity office as the office or the department that is the first to go,” Tracy said.
“If I’m misreading that, then I apologize for that,” the outgoing council president added.
“Thank you for … giving us the opportunity to clarify,” Weinberger responded. “We aren’t talking about cutting anything with this. What we just laid out is our strategy for avoiding cuts.”
The City Council is slated to decide Jan. 24 whether the capital and downtown infrastructure bonds will appear on March 1 ballots.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how much money Mayor Miro Weinberger planned to add to the city budget for equity programs annually over a three-year period. It is $630,000. Also, the story misquoted Weinberger in his response to a statement from council president Max Tracy. The mayor said, “Thank you for … giving us the opportunity to clarify.”
