The Burlington, Vermont City Council ratified a new contract with the police union during a special meeting Monday.
The Burlington Police Officers Association collective bargaining agreement expired on June 30th and a new three- year agreement had been reached retroactive to July 1st. A resolution to ratify and authorize Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger to execute the contract to June 30, 2025 was before councilors.
The meeting focused on ratification of the labor contract and began with an executive session to review the proposed contract.
When open session resumed Ward 1 Progressive Zoraya Hightower was among those who supported ratification but would have liked to see more done.
“Of course this contract doesn’t include everything that I want but I think more importantly maybe it doesn’t have everything that we need to restore community trust. So I personally am committing to this being the start of something and committing to doing more work.”
Ward 2 Progressive Eugene Bergman was a member of the negotiating team and agrees that the process needs to be improved.
“This process was better than in years past so I want to acknowledge that. I do not think it was good enough. Public safety questions hang over us tonight. You know this contract is only one piece of the transformation that we need to make.”
Central District Progressive Perri Freeman was the only councilor to vote against ratifying the new contract.
“I think especially going forward for me wondering about how to bring in the public more. How do we actually get feedback given the complications around it being an executive bargaining process?”
Mayor Weinberger noted for observers that councilors were carefully referencing and not detailing anything in the agreement prior to their vote because the codified collective bargaining process requires that terms not become public until after ratification. He added that he had been concerned when negotiations began that that there could have been a protracted dispute.
“Everyone involved recognized that that would be extraordinarily damaging and problematic at a time when we are dramatically down in the number of officers we have, at a time when we are seeking to move forward aggressively to rebuild the department and at a time when we’re facing a greater level of public safety challenge than any point in the last decade and at a time when there is a need to move forward on numerous police accountability measures.”
The contract was ratified on a 10 yes and 1 no vote with one councilor absent.
Following ratification, the mayor’s office released highlights of the contract. It includes a 20 percent base pay increase over three years, including a 12 percent increase in 2023. It increases the time disciplinary records can be kept and clarifies which can be kept permanently. It also has provisions intended to prevent the Burlington Police Department from hiring officers who have been fired from other law enforcement agencies for disciplinary reasons.
