Mayor&Rsquo;S Office

Information about Ballot Items: Town Meeting Day

Neighbors,

I hope you were able to enjoy the beautiful snow this weekend. 

Town Meeting Day is this Tuesday. For those of you who haven’t voted yet I wanted to offer some final information about three important municipal ballot items. 

Question #2 - New revenues for the City budget

Burlington residents pay too much in property taxes and one of my guiding principles for the last decade has been to manage our finances responsibly without making this problem worse. In that time we have restored our high credit rating, kept tax rate growth for the City’s operations below the rate of inflation, and expanded and improved many services. 

High inflation, however, is a challenge that gives us few good options for avoiding tax rate increases. Inflation drives up our expenses, but, per the rules of our city charter, not our property tax revenues.  

This challenge – inflation – is why I have brought forward a ballot item for the largest rate increase of the last decade. 

Our only other viable option would be to make cuts in services and personnel. Over the past two years, the City team has led the way fighting COVID better than perhaps any community in the country, maintaining youth summer programming when many other agencies were closed, and keeping our downtown vibrant amidst huge economic uncertainty. This tax rate increase is critical to working through this challenge without major cuts. 

Question #3 - Bonding for continued infrastructure investment

One of the most important functions of local government is to create and responsibly steward public infrastructure. Our water, sewer, and electric infrastructure make city life possible, our roads and sidewalks are the foundation of our economy, and our bike path and incredible network of parks and open space create incredible recreation and nature adventures accessible throughout the City. 

Caring for these assets requires sustained vigilance and investment. Yet, this hasn’t always been our approach. For example, until just a few years ago our plan for upgrading water lines was to wait for them to break – which meant that the City only worked on water lines in emergency conditions on the coldest nights of the year. 

Since your overwhelming support of the Sustainable Infrastructure Bond in 2016, we have been able to prioritize reinvestment in and preventative maintenance of our public infrastructure in a strategic, prudent and sustainable manner. This second capital bond continues that level of investment in our City infrastructure, and 67% of voters need to vote in support of this bond in order for it to pass. This is the last time for the foreseeable future that the City will come forward with a major General Obligation Bond. The City needs these funds to lock in this new, responsible, and ultimately far more affordable approach to managing our treasured public infrastructure.  

The School District is expected to come forward with a major bond request for a new high school this fall.  We have planned for that by putting in place a Debt Policy that establishes binding guidelines on how much combined debt the City and BSD can responsibly borrow, and by reserving more than half of the total capacity for School District borrowing. 

Our only other viable option would be to make cuts in services and personnel. Over the past two years, the City team has led the way fighting COVID better than perhaps any community in the country, maintaining youth summer programming when many other agencies were closed, and keeping our downtown vibrant amidst huge economic uncertainty. This tax rate increase is critical to working through this challenge without major cuts. 

Question #4 - Upgrading Main Street

Forty years ago, the City did something pretty remarkable – we tore up Church Street, closed it to cars, and invested in a complete overhaul of the street’s design.  There was a lot of skepticism about the concept at the time, but Burlingtonians made it happen, and today the Church Street Marketplace is beloved, iconic, and enormously economically successful. 

The Main Street redesign plan will have a similar transformational impact. Question #4 authorizes the City to use TIF funds to make dramatic upgrades to the six blocks of Main Street from Memorial Auditorium to the train station, which will include majestic street trees, outdoor eating, protected bike lanes, beautiful rain gardens that protect Lake Champlain, and more.  

When properly planned for, as the City has done, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) allows the City to make these investments without any impact to property taxes.  As you consider your vote, you can be confident that the City has brought the same prudent, conservative approach to our TIF decision-making as we have brought to other financial issues as we have restored our excellent credit rating over the last decade.

 

You can read more about how TIF works as an economic development tool here.

For more information about all of these ballot items check out the answers to the Frequently Asked Questions posted on the City’s website:

Warmly,

Miro Weinberger
Mayor