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Burlington School Board passes resolution asking City Council to approve bonding ballot question

Burlington High School conceptual design Option C
CFranceschi
/
Burlington School District
Burlington High School conceptual design Option C

The Burlington School Board has passed a resolution that formally requests the city council place a question on the November ballot to approve bonding to build a new high school and technical center. The resolution is now on Monday evening’s City Council agenda for consideration.

The Burlington School Board decided to rebuild the high school and technical center after the buildings were closed due to high levels of PCBs. The board had previously chosen the design and on August 10th reviewed a resolution to approve project costs along with the language that would go before voters.

Board Vice Chair and South District Commissioner Jeff Wick offered the proposed resolution, reading in part:

“There is a possibility that some funding assistance from government or private sources might be received in the future that could potentially reduce the size of the required bond issue,” read Wick. “Such funding is not presently assured. And whereas Vermont law prohibits the subsidization of the necessary capital cost from the municipal revenues of the city of Burlington; now therefore be it resolved that the City Council be requested to place a question before Burlington’s voters to be substantially as follows: Shall the City Council be authorized to issue general obligation bonds or notes in an amount not to exceed $165 million? The total estimated costs of capital improvements is $190 million.”

District Superintendent Tom Flanagan was asked to explain what is being done to reduce the total $165 million bond that could be borrowed if bonding is approved.

“We are proposing with this resolution to bond up to $165 million. Bonding up to $165 million does not mean we need to borrow $165 million,” Flanagan said. “At this point with American Rescue Plan and also two big federal grants and savings in bonding that we have already secured we are bringing $35 million to this project. So I think it’s important for people to understand that we have brought significant funding to the project and we’re going to continue to be really aggressive in seeking additional funding so that we don’t have to bond up to the $165 million.”

North District Commissioner Kendra Sowers supports the $165 million bond amount and believes the state and federal governments should be providing more funding for the project.

“BHS and BTC were shut down due to PCBs, as we all know, and we haven’t received any money to date for cleanup,” Sowers said. “So we have not been able to take that out of the bond yet. We know there’s money that’s been set aside by the Legislature but it was not allocated before they went into recess. So we are really going to be going after that money. But that is not included in this bond amount. And the second thing I want to say is for ten years the state of Vermont has had a moratorium on capital projects. So for the city of Burlington on a $165 million bond that’s $49.5 million that the state should be covering. We’re really going to do our best going after state and federal grant funding.”

Ward 3 Commissioner Polly Vanderputten noted that if state and federal money is secured, the district won’t necessarily have to use the full bonding amount.

“When we passed the bond for renovation in 2018 for $70 million, we had that in mind as the number, we ended up using some of it but not all of it,” Vanderputten said. “And I came to understand that it is possible if we receive the state and federal level funding that we don’t necessarily have to use this money and ask this of Burlington taxpayers. But we do need to ask it today because we absolutely must get this high school and tech center built.”

The resolution passed unanimously on a voice vote and was forwarded to the City Council which has placed the item on Monday night’s agenda.

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