Essex Junction leaders preview $12.42 million general fund budget, outline tax impact

At an informational meeting of the City of Essex Junction, Moderator Steve Eustis read Article 1: “Shall the voters approve an annual general fund budget in the amount of $12,419,241 for fiscal year 07/01/2025 to 06/30/2026, $11,405,931 of which is to be levied in taxes against the City?” Regina Mahoney, City Manager, then presented the budget overview and tax impacts.

Mahoney said the FY2026 general fund is a $415,000 increase, “and that is a 3% increase on the General Fund.” She described the proposed tax-rate change as a $0.012 increase that would raise the tax bill by about $73 for a $280,000 assessed-value home — a 2.6% change versus FY2025 — and noted that the slide shown to the public isolates the general fund for this ballot item while enterprise utility rates will be adopted separately by council this spring.

The presentation said public safety (police, fire and Essex Rescue) is the largest share of the general fund. On the revenue side, Mahoney described that roughly 75% of general-fund revenue comes from residential property taxes, 11% from city businesses, 8% from miscellaneous fees and 6% from GlobalFoundries. She also noted the administration is proposing a new stormwater utility that requires a separate public hearing scheduled for April 9.

Members of the public questioned specific budget allocations. George Dunbar, a resident, focused on recreation accounting and administration costs, saying in part: “In the general fund we have $780,000 administering an operating budget of $360,000. And on the enterprise side we have $100,000 administrating a $4,000,000 operating budget.” He asked whether more administration costs could be shifted from the general fund to program/enterprise funds to reduce the city tax rate.

Regina Mahoney responded that some costs have been moved to program funds in recent cycles — citing costs for Park Street School as an example — and that not all recreation activities are fee-based or tied to a program fund. Brad Luck, a staff member, said categorization drives much of the apparent difference and that many administrative functions are already included inside individual program budgets: “When you're looking at the licensed childcare budget or the preschool budget or the recreation programs budget, there's actually admin that's built into those.” He added that the general fund carries core overhead for a recreation department and that staff have been working with finance and the manager to “right size” the department.

The meeting was informational only; the council will not vote on the budget at the session. The city reiterated that voters will decide Article 1 by ballot on Tuesday, April 8. Questions about balloting logistics were directed to the clerk.