The Burlington, Vermont City Council’s Board of Finance on Wednesday night heard budget presentations from several key departments, including the police and mayor’s office.
Burlington leaders have been holding informational meetings to hear departmental budget presentations, which includes cost savings plans for Fiscal Year 2026.
First-term Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said earlier in May that the city is facing an $8 million budget gap and she would eliminate 25 city positions across departments.
Ward 1 resident Richard Hillyard told councilors they are ignoring potential revenue streams.
“I have no sense that we’re doing anything significant to gain revenue by enforcing laws, rules, ordinances that are already on the city’s books. I think that’s money that we’re not realizing that we should be,” admonished Hillyard.
Former city councilor Sharon Bushor reminded current councilors that some departments in the past had not received city funding.
“Initially Burlington City Arts and CEDO were actually funded, not by the General Fund. Burlington City Arts was really driven by the money that they raised, the donations, the grants etcetera. CEDO the same. And over time there was a gap and the city stepped in and there was General Fund dollars added to their budgets,” recalled Bushor. “I’m concerned about when we make changes and we don’t actually set limits or triggers to rethink or reset.”
Following public comments, each department presented their 2026 budget requests, highlights from Fiscal Year 2025 activity, cost reductions and revenue and expense expectations.
Burlington City Arts Executive Director Doreen Kraft told councilors that they have reorganized to save money in the 2026 budget.
“You know, we knew that FY26 was going to be a difficult year. We knew there was a cliff. We knew we were coming out of the loss of ARPA funds and so there was a lot of planning on our part. And so we were able to reorganize our administrative and tasks and our fundraising and we were able to eliminate a position. There were positions within BCA that we held off not rehiring. I guess it was prescient to know it was coming,” Kraft noted.
Earlier this month, Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak named a new director for the Burlington Community and Economic Development office along with plans to merge the Business & Workforce Development and the Church Street Marketplace into that office. CEDO Director Kara Alnasrawi said due to the pending merger the 2026 budget is a work in progress.
“Most importantly is CEDO had two budgets, a general fund and non-general fund budgets. We are now just having our non-general fund budget,” Alnasrawi explained. “It will be easier to manage and we will be able to have a closer eye on our expenditures versus our revenues by combining those cash flows into one budget.”
New Police Chief Shawn Burke noted that his department accounts for the largest portion of Burlington’s general fund budget.
“Cost savings for FY26, not shocking to anyone sitting here. When you look at our budget 92% are humans. About 8% is operations. So we did a significant number of staff reductions. Many of these positions were vacant,” noted Burke. “There is also a cost reduction with our alignments with city IT. In terms of our vacant officer positions, we’ve budgeted for ten total vacant positions. On revenue, what’s really notable here is the loss of ARPA funding.”
The meeting was the last in a series of departmental budget presentations.
The mayor has until June 15th to present a final budget to the council. The city’s fiscal year begins July 1st.
