Local Government

Daily Buzz | Town Finance Committee Votes on Official Funding Recommendation for New Buildings

Town Meeting and next year's local election figure in heavily

Nicci Kadilak

Mar 14, 2024 — 4 min read

Don’t forget to sign up for the Charcuterie Class sponsored by the Burlington Rotary Club, which will be held on Saturday, March 30.

It’s been a busy week for our election candidates, and the latest way for you to get to know them is ready for your viewing pleasure. Give BCAT’s debates a watch, and learn what your candidates say they’d bring to their respective roles. Enjoy!

Town Moderator Debate featuring incumbent Bill Beyer and challenger Adam Senesi
Select Board Debate with challengers Sarah Cawley and Brad Bond (Incumbent, Joe Morandi, did not attend due to a death in the family.)

You can always learn more at the BNEWS Election Center and the Buzz Election Module.

Town Finance Committee Votes on Official Funding Recommendation for New Buildings

The Ways & Means Committee voted 9-1-0 last night on their official recommendation for funding of the two large constructions projects that are on the horizon.

Recent projects built by the town, costing anywhere from $8m to $32m, have easily fit within the town’s operating budget. The building projects in front of us now, however, are on the order of three time the cost of those performed over the last decade and a half.

Delays in executing the town’s capital plan, caused in part by the DPW building taking longer than expected and the long period of applying annually for state matching funds to rebuild or renovate the high school, along with a much higher-than-expected increase in construction costs, have brought us to this point, and now there is a $45m police station and a $100m Fox Hill in the pipeline.

As we mentioned on Monday, there is a limit to how much a town can raise taxes on its residents and businesses each year—that comes out to 2.5% over the previous year’s baseline and, importantly, does not include inflation. When a town doesn’t use up all of that 2.5%, they build up excess levy capacity</em>; this gives towns a buffer to raise taxes without needing to go to a town-wide vote. Currently Burlington has about $13m in excess levy capacity.

At some point, if taxes go up more than the excess levy capacity and there’s not enough new growth (new residential and commercial buildings being built) to offset the increase, a town will bump up against that 2.5% and have to increase their taxing capacity. The two ways to do this are through a 2 1/2 override, which increases taxes permanently, and a debt exclusion, which increases taxes until a project is paid off.

Most towns and cities in Massachusetts have attempted both of these mechanisms, and while a 2 1/2 override has less than a 50% success rate, debt exclusions are far more likely (90%) to pass.

The borrowing approval and the adoption of a funding mechanism for a capital project don’t necessarily need to be paired together when the project could fit into the town’s operating budget, and that’s what’s going on with these two projects.

But while it’s feasible for Burlington to fund both Fox Hill and the police station through the operating budget, modeling from the Ways & Means Committee suggests that strategy would exhaust the town’s excess levy capacity within about six years if nothing else changes. If the projects are funded by a debt exclusion, that time period doubles.

Either way, once the borrowing is approved by Town Meeting, taxes will increase by the same amount.

I’ll step aside here to state the obvious: Either way, the town will have to figure out in the near future how to continue offering the level of services residents are used to—and determine what sacrifices need to be made—without having to go to the polls for an override each year.

Since these projects can feasibly be paid for out of the operating budget, the decision has been made to decouple the borrowing approval, which must be made by a 2/3 Town Meeting Vote, from the funding mechanism, which must be placed on the ballot by 4 out of 5 Select Board members and approved by a majority of voters.

The official recommendation from Ways & Means, the town’s finance committee, is three-fold:

Move forward with both the police station and Fox Hill projects without making them dependent on a debt exclusion.
Schedule Town Meeting bonding authorization votes (which will require a 2/3 majority at Town Meeting) for May 2024 for the police station and September 2024 for Fox Hill.
Place the debt exclusions on the local election ballot in April 2025.

While one Ways & Means member argued that the projects should be presented and voted on together, and that they should be presented at an election with greater turnout, such as a national election, other Committee members held that (a) each project should be presented when its plans are complete and it’s ready to move forward, and (b) the town should vote on them at a town election, so as to avoid political issues and prevent voters who aren’t necessarily long-term stakeholders but might be showing up to vote on national issues from determining how property taxes are used.

☕ Tip Jar ☕

Today in Burlington

Municipal Meetings and Community Events

Elementary Conferences (by appointment)
11:00 AM - Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SEPAC) will talk about next week’s Basic Rights training, how the district should be communicating with out-of-district families for community events, a program review, and more. (Virtual)
12:30-3:00 PM - Bridge Club (Human Services Building, 2nd floor)
4:00 PM - Teen Event: Celebrate Pi Day! - Join your friends and sample different pies and play games. (Burlington Public Library; Register)
6:30 PM - Burlington High School Building Committee will introduce the architects that will be performing the feasibility study and discuss the timeline. They’ll also discuss and vote on enrollment projections. (Virtual)
6:30 PM - Conservation Commission will discuss a request for extension regarding the wetland bylaw, projects to improve stormwater management and add landscaping at 5-7 Ray Ave and remove trees at 2 Dublin Circle, and notices of intent for various construction projects around town. (Town Hall and Virtual)
6:30 PM - Leprechaun Traps - kids in Pre-K through 5th Grade can come use materials to build clever traps and try to outwit those pesky green guys who are planning to coming back this weekend! (Burlington Public Library; Register)
7:00 PM - Board of Library Trustees (Burlington Public Library)