LEARN MORE ABOUT
Andrew Chalnick’s Campaign Priorities
LEARN MORE ABOUT
Andrew Chalnick’s Campaign Priorities
Fiscal Responsibility
Growth must be balanced with thoughtful planning. I have and will continue to focus on affordability, looking for opportunities to grow our tax base and ensuring that the City does not spend beyond our means.
I am satisfied that during my tenure municipal tax increases were kept very close to flat in real dollars (tax increases were roughly 1% above inflation cumulatively over the past three years). But, we can do better. My intent for FY27 is for municipal tax increases to track inflation — for your municipal taxes to be flat in real dollars.
Even with the relatively modest increases to municipal taxes, the City’s finances are in excellent shape:
- For FY25, the City projects a surplus of $1,280,014. Together with accumulated surplus from prior years, the City projects a cumulative surplus balance (a “Fund Balance”) as of Oct 30, 2025 of $5,518,555.
- The Pennies for Path fund ended FY25 with a balance of $884,841.
- The Open Space Fund ended FY25 with a balance of $759,237 (excluding amounts in the fund designated for debt repayment).
- The Energy Project Reserve Fund ended FY25 with a balance of $476,866.
- The City still has “ARPA dollars” to spend totaling $1,882,999, as of Oct 1, 2025.
During my tenure, the City successfully launched a cloud-based permitting system that allows for online permit submittals for all City permits in one place. This system should greatly improve efficiency around permitting, both improving the user experience and saving money. The City also successfully launched a new finance system that moves us from a complete paper-based and manual system to a cloud-based system that allows for data analysis and online processing.
We also recently adopted our first Economic Development Strategic Plan to guide our policy decisions and help us collectively understand how to build, nurture and support the economy. Thoughtful implementation of the plan over the years and decades ahead will help expand commercial opportunities, grow the City’s tax base and support our long-term fiscal health.
Tax Increment Financing (TIF)
In 2012, a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District was established around the South Burlington City Center to raise funds for public infrastructure — like roads, City Hall, the library and shared use paths — with the goal of spurring new private development and commercial growth in City Center. Following this designation, the City issued $29 million of debt (“TIF Debt”) due in 2037. The City will capture the additional (incremental) tax revenue generated by development within the TIF District that has occurred since 2012 and through 2037. This incremental tax revenue will be used to pay down the debt.
Specifically, taxes based on property values in the TIF District as of 2011 continue to go to the State Education Fund as usual. But, through 2037, 75% of the taxes on the increased value from 2012 — the “increment” created by new development — are redirected from the State Education Fund back to the City. These redirected funds are used to pay down the TIF debt. Through FY26, $5,002,154 of such taxes have already been redirected from the State Education Fund to the City. It is projected that over the life of the TIF District, and with modest growth of 56 new units annually, sufficient incremental tax revenue will be redirected to the City to pay down the enitre $29 million in TIF debt and the interest thereon.
Doing Good and Doing Well
As above, the City maintains an energy project reserve fund which accumulates savings from energy-related projects, such as the $200,000 saved annually from the 2.6 Mw land fill solar array, and then reinvests those savings in other energy-related projects.
For FY26, it is anticipated that some of the reserve fund will be used to fund EV chargers at the Police Station, an electric pickup truck for our fire and ambulance services, an electric mower and/or pickup truck for the department of public works, an EV charging station at Airport Parkway and painting of the Airport Parkway digester tank.
In 2025 the investment made in four Hyundai Kona electric vehicles saved the City $46,000 over what the City would have paid to acquire comparable fossil fuel vehicles. In addition to the upfront savings, it will cost much less to operate these vehicles as the cost of the electricity to power a Hyundai Kona is equivalent to about $1.30/gallon of gas. Also, the electric vehicles have much less to maintain and should have much lower maintenance costs over their lives. We can do good and do well!
