BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Cut spending or collect more taxes? The two major party candidates for Burlington mayor have differing approaches when it comes to city government. Affordability is one of the top issues in this year’s mayoral race with residents feeling the pinch of building a new school, a ballot measure to raise taxes, and the general impacts of inflation.
During Mayor Miro Weinberger’s 12 years in office, the city budget has increased by more than 50% Inflation is partly to blame, but the city has also added new programs and initiatives — some funded by pandemic relief money — that are now falling on the backs of local taxpayers.
Democratic candidate for mayor Joan Shannon wants to curb the growth rate of government. “Our job coming into this next budget is to figure out where we can cut, where we can cut funds from the budget and minimize the impact to service levels,” she said.
Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, the Progressive candidate for mayor, is not as worried about the growth of government. She says the city needs to focus on increasing revenues to maintain and add services. She wants commercial properties to pay more and wants to target some of the 60% of properties in the city that are exempt from property taxes. “How do we create a more equitable system so that we are leveraging through partnerships, MOUs, other kinds of agreements, so that those entities are able to pay a bit into supporting the vibrancy of our government and of our of our beautiful city,” she said.
Shannon agrees some nonprofits could pay more in lieu of taxes but she disagrees that businesses need to pay a larger share of taxes. Shannon is also doubtful about Mulvaney-Stanak’s idea to create an income sensitivity system for municipal property taxes, similar to what the state uses for education property taxes. “I think that it’s fair to look at different tax systems, but I don’t think Burlington exceptionalism and going in entirely different way than the state of Vermont is likely to be successful,” she said.
At a time of a growing number of empty storefronts, both candidates agree more needs to be done to shore up the health of the downtown, including through police and public safety investments. They also think the key to a thriving community is local businesses. “It’s important to help small business, not only downtown, but in all of our economic sort of zones and throughout the city,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
“Sometimes, we have local businesses replacing national chains and I think that that brings kind of a more organic experience to Burlington,” Shannon said.
Mulvaney-Stanak and Shannon also agree any housing agreement between the city and the University of Vermont needs to limit student encroachment into neighborhoods which they say takes away valuable housing stock and makes the remaining units more expensive for residents.
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