Cold, hard fiscal realities seem to have chilled the enthusiasm of Burlington’s city council for some once-vaunted capital projects like a new police headquarters that formerly topped the city’s to-do list and a sportsplex on the city’s west side that was part of a bond package that the city’s voters approved two years ago.
The council’s increasingly lukewarm attitude to these big-ticket ventures was among the revelations to emerge from an all-day retreat that its members held Thursday near the shore of Lake Mackintosh.
During the course of this 7-hour gathering, various members of the council expressed their preference for projects that will maintain the city’s core infrastructure as well as public safety endeavors such as a new substation for the city’s fire department.
These consensus favorites were elevated at the expense of costlier ventures like a $40 million HQ for the city’s police and the proposed sportsplex, which is currently allotted to get $27 million from a $47 million bond package that the city’s electorate passed in the fall of 2024.
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In each case, these tumbles from grace are the byproduct of a growing wariness about the city’s finances, which hasn’t been altogether relieved by the council’s approval of a 8-cent property tax increase this spring.
This sense of financial angst was perhaps best summed up by councilman Ian Baltutis, who recalled a much different tenor a decade ago when he served as Burlington’s mayor rather than a rank-and-file member of the council.
“We basically have no flex in our budget even with our latest budget and its tax increase.”
– councilman Ian Baltutis
“When we did this in 2016, there was a very different tone in the room,” Baltutis recalled during Thursday’s discussion. “There was a lot more money in the general fund, the economy was roaring, and having a $40 million police headquarters on the docket didn’t feel unattainable. . . Now, we basically have no flex in our budget even with our latest budget and its tax increase.”
The ‘current context’
Baltutis offered this insight about “the tone in the room” after he and his colleagues broke up in to smaller groups to plumb the city’s “current context” with the assistance of municipal staff members.
During these breakout sessions, the council members were brought up to speed on the city’s master plans for pedestrians and cyclists as well as the continued expansion of Burlington’s Link Transit bus system. They also learned about the top priorities of the parks and recreation department, which briefly piqued some interest in a new recreation facility south of the interstate, as well as some mammoth upgrades to the city’s water plants that will enable them to filter out nonstick chemicals called PFAS and other “emergent contaminants.”
The council’s members received additional updates on a $14.2 million overhaul of underground utilities that’s presently underway in Burlington’s downtown business district. They went on to review the various bond-subsidized ventures that the city’s voters approved in 2024.
These projects include $15 million in street repairs and resurfacing, $1.5 million in sidewalk improvements, and $5 million in downtown streetscaping that were all packaged together as one ballot item.
Another bond package approved in 2024 featured $47 million for the aforementioned sportsplex, the reconstruction of the Maynard Aquatic Center, and the expansion of Burlington’s Paramount Theater. A long-time priority of then-mayor Jim Butler, the sportsplex had initially been allotted $30 million of these recreation-related bonds. That sum has since been reduced to $27 million to raise the original budget for the aquatic center from $6 million to $9 million.
Aside from these bond-funded projects, the city’s fire chief Matt Lawrence reviewed some recommendations he has previously shared with the council to improve the coverage of the city’s six fire stations. These suggestions include the development of new stations in the city’s western and northern extremities, the potential relocation of an existing station on Tucker Street to serve the Burlington-Alamance Airport, and some sort of realignment to fill a coverage gap between the fire department’s headquarters and its existing station near Holly Hill Mall.
In the meantime, the council received an overview of the city’s fiscal position from Peggy Reece, the city’s finance director. Reece acknowledged that the city is operating on a razor thin margin in spite of this year’s tax increase, which raised the city’s property tax rate from 48.36 to 56.36 cents for every $100 of property value. The council had allocated about half of this 16.5 percent jump in the tax rate to pay off the debt on the bonds passed in 2024. Much of the remainder was set aside for public safety increases, such as salary hikes for the city’s police officers and firefighters, leaving little left over for other municipal services.
“For every million dollars that you want to add to the budget, it is a 1.1-cent increase in taxes. So, we tell our department heads that when you come in with a new idea, come in with a way or fund it or with something you’re going to cut.”
– Burlington’s finance director Peggy Reece
Reece reminded the council that, prior to this tax increase, the city was practically running on gas fumes due, in part, to a steep rise in personnel expenses, which had shot up by about $10 million since 2022. She added that the infusion of more property tax dollars hasn’t created much of a cushion for any extras that the council may want to tack onto the city’s general fund.
“For every million dollars that you want to add to the budget, it is a 1.1-cent increase in taxes,” she cautioned its members at the retreat. “So, we tell our department heads that when you come in with a new idea, come in with a way or fund it or with something you’re going to cut.”
A matter of priorities
Baltutis wasn’t the only one who seemed chastened by the finance director’s report.
Jeff Smythe, who had served as the city’s police chief before he joined the council last year, was equally concerned about the city’s ability to bankroll departmental requests in its future budgets.
“We’re just going to be saying ‘no’ to a lot of wishful thinking. That’s the reality that we find ourselves in. . .
“I’m not advocating that we build a police headquarters next year. . . There are some fire needs that preempt that. But it needs to be – and stay – on the list . . . When I think about not riding our existing [infrastructure] versus building another ‘parky thing, the critical core and city infrastructure has got to be a higher priority than expanding quality of life.”
– councilman Jeff Smythe
“We’re just going to be saying ‘no’ to a lot of wishful thinking,” he told the rest of the council. “That’s the reality that we find ourselves in.”
Mayor Beth Kennett and councilmember Dejuana Bigelow, likewise, recognized that the council will have to make some difficult choices as it struggles to make the most of the revenue at its disposal. This point was later reiterated by Burlington’s mayor pro tem Bob Ward.
“I didn’t hear any project that I didn’t like. But when you look at the hard cold facts…you don’t have to be a math major to know some of these things we aren’t going to be able to afford. So, the critical thing is priorities.”
– mayor pro tem Bob Ward
“I didn’t hear any project that I didn’t like,” Ward conceded during the retreat. “But when you look at the hard cold facts…you don’t have to be a math major to know some of these things we aren’t going to be able to afford. So, the critical thing is priorities.”
The city’s leaders had an opportunity to set these priorities as they entered the next phase of Thursday’s gathering.
This prioritization process began as each council member sat down and brainstormed their own personal areas of emphasis for the community. These individual to-do lists included items such as water and sewer upgrades; handicapped accessibility; economic development public safety infrastructure, and specifically a new fire station; other “core” infrastructure improvements; and “quality of life” projects like parks, recreation facilities, and public paths for pedestrians and cyclists.
The council went on to compile these pet projects into a single, consensus list of priorities.
Reece tried to simplify these labors by pulling out any water and sewer upgrades, which are bankrolled by a freestanding fee-based account that’s distinct from the city’s general fund. This proved just as well for the council, which recoiled at the price tag of $90 million to $120 million that city manager Bob Pattersron had placed on the proposed retrofits needed to filter out PFAS at the city’s two water plants.
Yield to the fire department
The council went on to identify public safety infrastructure as its highest priority – with a particular focus on the city’s seventh fire station. Reece estimated that the city will need to shell out about $5 million for this facility – along with $1 million for a new fire engine and $1 million-plus per annum for staffing this station.
To most of the council, this sum was considerably preferable to the $40 million plus that had once been assigned to the police department’s new headquarters, which was the only other piece of public safety infrastructure to get much attention at the retreat.
“[Police have] gotten raises – two of them – so we haven’t forgotten about [the police]. . . But on the headquarters side, that has been left behind even though it ranked number one.”
– council member Dejuana Bigelow on shift in council’s priorities away from law enforcement to the fire department
Bigelow suggested that this once-ballyhooed project had fallen from its perch atop the city’s to-do list due to the considerable sums that the council has invested into wage increases for police officers.
“They’ve gotten raises – two of them – so we haven’t forgotten about [the police],” she added. “But on the headquarters side, that has been left behind even though it ranked number one.”
Smythe, who was still the city’s police chief when the department’s proposed HQ came into vogue, insisted that the council shouldn’t jettison this project entirely.
“I’m not advocating that we build a police headquarters next year,” he acknowledged. “There are some fire needs that preempt that. But it needs to be – and stay – on the list.”
His suggestion was immediately echoed by other members of the council.
No win for sportsplex
The council continued to assemble its master list of priorities with economic development in the second-place slot. Its members initially assigned “quality of life” to the third tier until Smythe spoke up in favor of repairs and maintenance to the city’s core infrastructure.
“When I think about not riding our existing [infrastructure] versus building another ‘parky thing,’” he observed, “the critical core and city infrastructure has got to be a higher priority than expanding quality of life.”
The council bumped quality of life to the forth slot on the list, leaving handicapped access to round out the top five. In the meantime, its members began to pick away at the $27 million in bonds that have been assigned to the sportsplex in their search for the revenue to fund the priorities that outranked quality of life.
Ward proceeded to ask the city’s finance director if the council could simply divert the funds budgeted to the sportsplex for some other project. Reece said that the wording of the pertinent bond referendum only allows this reshuffling if the revenue is used for recreation. She added that the council may need to float another bond package if it wants to bankroll something entirely unrelated like a new fire station.
In response, Smythe suggested that the council could forgo the sportsplex entirely in order to free up the extra debt capacity for public safety.
“Could we not sell the $27 million, let it sunset, and then do a bond for this more meaningful work?” he said.
Kennett admitted that she, too, has had the same thought about her predecessor’s preferred venture.
“I know this may not be popular,” the mayor added, “but do we need to pause the western sportsplex in order to meet critical needs in the city?”
“I said that back in 202[4] when we put it on the ballot,” chimed in Bigelow, who had nevertheless joined the council’s unanimous vote to float all of the bond-subsidized projects that appeared on the ballot that fall.
The council took no action on Thursday to reassign the funds for sportsplex. Nor did its members arrive at a consensus to let the bonds for this project expire, which will occur after seven years if they aren’t taken to market.
