Burlington, Vermont city councilors considered several items during their meeting Monday night including whether to remove the hiring cap on the city police department.
Councilors began their meeting hearing a report on action in the state legislature that could affect the city. A Government Relations team will provide regular updates on the city’s legislative priorities: housing, mental health and substance use, judicial and pre-monitoring systems, water infrastructure, gun reform and charter changes. Consultant David Mickenberg, a Partner at Mickenberg LLC, noted the session is just gearing up with preliminary committee work.
“As many of you know there was quite a shift in the Legislature and sort of partisan balance, I would say, is more so now than in previous years. And so many of the issues that you care about, that you’ve identified as your priorities, are issues that are now currently being talked about in the legislature,” reported Mickenberg.
Ward 7 Democrat Evan Litwin expressed concerns to Mickenberg about legislative action he says could impact the state’s first overdose prevention center to be built in Burlington.
“One of the bills has been introduced to override the $1 million that was earmarked last session for the overdose prevention center,” Litwin noted. “And A: I really want Burlington residents to be aware that that is moving in the House somewhere and B: I’d love if you could speak to this bill and what impact it may have on us now or in the future.”
“The bill was introduced,” acknowledged Mickenberg. “It hasn’t had a hearing yet. It’s not just to remove the money that’s been allocated to Burlington. It’s a full repeal of the statute.”
The most contentious item on the agenda was a resolution calling for the elimination of the Burlington Police Department hiring cap. The department currently has 64 sworn officers and the Police Chief will leave by April. South District Democrat Joan Shannon says the resolution was drafted with input from the police union, the police chief and Progressives.
“It is clear there is no magic number of sworn officers for this city. But what is clear is by any calculation we need far more than we have and we should be signaling to recruits our intentions to rebuild this department,” Shannon said. “To that end this resolution recommends eliminating the cap on police officers which will be determined annually by their budget and ability to recruit. There is no other department in the city that has this type of employee cap.”
Ward 2 Progressive Gene Bergman opposed removing the hiring cap.
“Our proposals improved the resolution greatly but we are sad to say that there were not enough changes for us to vote for it,” Bergman said. “Our most important objective, ah, objection, involves the resolve clause that removes the cap. This does nothing to improve recruitment or retention or make our city safer. It is a performative distraction. The removal of the cap without a real assessment is not a meaningful policy initiative especially when there is no likelihood of reaching the cap or the budgeted number anytime soon.”
The resolution passed 6 to 5 with all Progressives voting against and all Democrats in favor.
City councilors also received a presentation from Burlington School District Executive Director of Finance Nathan Lavery on the anticipated district budget that will be put before voters on Town Meeting Day March 4th.
“The real highlight for our Fiscal Year ’26 budget is that we’re projecting that it will decrease education property taxes by 4 percent across the city, which is really great news,” Lavery told councilors. “I do want to throw up a caution flag at the same time and say that there is improvements that the state is going to be looking at to the education financing formula during this legislative session. And so I think that’s just something for us all to be paying attention to.”
City councilors also reviewed bonds that will be placed on the ballot and passed a joint motion approving short form language for three charter questions.
