Late last month, Burlington, Vermont’s new mayor announced the fiscal year 2025 budget had a nearly $13 million, rather than the expected $9 million, budget gap. On Tuesday she said the budget gap had been closed.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, a Progressive who was sworn in on April 1st, held a press conference three weeks later to announce the larger than expected budget gap. On Tuesday she and the Chief Administrative Officer said the gap had been closed. The previous night the mayor held a regular Board of Finance meeting that included an update on how the general fund budget had been stabilized.
Chief Administrative Officer Katherine Schad outlined the proposed solutions, including adjustments in taxes and other fiscal changes.
“We are continuing to strategically use one-time funds. We are proposing to redirect some ARPA funds," reported Schad. "In terms of right sizing the budget, we have about 22 or 23 positions that we will be holding vacant. We have also been working to see where can we right size some of our programs without making a big impact on the public. Originally, we had identified a $13 million gap. We're coming in with solutions over $13 million.”
Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak praised city departments for finding nearly $14 million in savings while allowing the city to continue rebuilding its police department.
“This gets us on the road towards affordability, gets us on the road to sustainability and starts the conversation about right sizing the city's budget," asserted Mulvaney-Stanak. "This does include continuing to grow our police department. So this budget assumes 10 additional sworn officers to be hired over the course of next year. There's still a commitment by my administration to do some work towards rebuilding the department. But I want to make sure to present you a budget that was realistic.”
The Board of Finance is composed of the mayor, the chief administrative officer and city councilors. South District Democrat Joan Shannon quizzed the mayor about “right-sizing” the budget.
“To me the term would indicate some things will get bigger, some things will get smaller," noted Shannon. "If that's not the case, it's really just cuts. And as it seems to be producing very significant savings by cutting programs and also this budget funds all existing staff. And I don't understand where the savings comes from if you're cutting programs without cutting staff.”
“The vacancy savings," Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak replied, "my intention is for that to be temporary for this year while we figure out how can we be merging programs. How can we be looking at things that could be done more efficiently. What are those services again that we should even be providing as a city.”
The Burlington city charter requires the mayor to submit a budget to the city council by June 15th and the council then has until June 30th to approve it.
