Financial Goals

On Monday, Burlington City Council unanimously voted to pass the 2025 fiscal year budget presented by Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak.It’s her first proposed budget as Mayor.A unanimous approval was expected as Mulvaney-Stanak, a Progressive, consulted with her fellow councilors from all parties throughout the process.Mulvaney-Stanak said this budget is a balanced one that keeps affordability in mind and has a strong investment in public safety.”I’m proud because it’s a budget that begins an important multi-year process of right-sizing our city government so we can sustain city services in an affordable and strategic way,” said Mulvaney-Stanak. “It raises revenue that keeps affordability in mind. It’s balanced.”She was tasked with the challenge of figuring out how to close what Mulvaney-Stanak described as a $14.2 million budget deficit.To close the gap, the budget will increase revenue from money spent at hotels, entertainment, and restaurants by raising their gross receipts taxes by 2%.There is also a partial property tax increase that voters authorized on Town Meeting Day, as part of increasing the public safety tax.The last method is using some of the remaining one-time funds.However, Mulvaney-Stanak said that’s a practice she wants to steer away from in the future.The budget also allocates $4.6 million to be invested in public safety initiatives.Some of those include continuing the fire department’s community response team, hiring additional community service officers, and investing in additional recruitment funds for the police department.It includes funding for 10 more sworn officers within our police department, which was agreed upon with our leadership in our police department, and that is what we can realistically hire,” said Mulvaney-Stanak. “If we can find more officers along the way in the next fiscal year, we will hire more and find that money.”While the budget was unanimously approved, some councilors like South District’s Joan Shannon and North District’s Mark Barlow felt the characterization of the budget deficit isn’t accurate and it isn’t fair to fully blame the previous administration.I believe the gap is overstated by $2.73 million or about 24% higher than it actually is,” said Barlow.Councilors offered their praise for Mulvaney-Stanak, like Ward 2’s Gene Bergman, highlighted her approach of utilizing the gross receipts tax as a creative way to limit the impact on Burlington taxpayers. Our ability to use Progressive alternatives to a regressive property tax is essential,” said Bergman.The new budget goes into effect next month.Mulvaney-Stanak said this whole process has been a major learning curve.She said she plans to start meeting with department heads about constructing fiscal year 2026’s budget as soon as August.