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Burlington once paid Vermont more than $100,000 for supplemental State Police patrols downtown. The latest deployment works differently: state officials say Vermont is paying and Burlington will not receive a bill.
by Dave Soulia, for FYIVT.com
For more than a year beginning in 2022, the arrangement was straightforward.
Vermont State Police troopers patrolled downtown Burlington. Burlington paid for them.
Under a written agreement, troopers worked overtime details around Church Street and City Hall Park, with the city covering overtime and travel costs from its police budget.
By the time the arrangement ended Dec. 30, 2023, Burlington had paid more than $100,000.
The city did not renew the agreement.
State Police are now back in Burlington.
This time, the financial arrangement is different.
State funds are paying for the latest deployment
Gov. Phil Scott directed State Police back into Burlington in late July. Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak was not notified beforehand and learned about the deployment through news coverage.
Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison later described the arrangement as a cooperative deployment rather than a contract.
According to Vermont Daily Chronicle, Morrison said the troopers are being paid with state funds and that Burlington “will not be sent the bill.”
As of Aug. 5, the deployment had logged 285 trooper hours and resulted in no arrests.
That creates a sharp contrast with the 2022–2023 arrangement.
Then, Burlington contracted for supplemental patrols and paid the state.
Now, Vermont is providing the personnel and absorbing the cost.
Burlington patrols already showed up in the State Police overtime problem
The expense is not merely theoretical.
On Dec. 17, 2025, the Department of Public Safety presented its budget-adjustment request to the House Appropriations Committee. DPS Director of Finance and Administration Richard Hauser walked lawmakers through a projected shortfall in the State Police overtime line — the only State Police line item the department sought an adjustment on.
In the committee’s recorded hearing, Hauser put a number on the Burlington piece: just over $100,000 of the overtime shortfall was attributable to supporting Burlington patrols.
That establishes an identifiable cost to the State Police budget from the Burlington deployments.
Reporting on the November–December 2025 operation was less clear about whether Burlington also contributed money.
WCAX reported that costs were being covered by both the state and Burlington.
Another contemporaneous account reported that state taxpayers were covering the State Police costs and quoted Burlington Interim Police Chief Shawn Burke saying Burlington was not expected to pay for supplemental patrols provided by several state agencies.
The later DPS budget testimony establishes that Vermont itself incurred more than $100,000 in Burlington-related overtime costs. Public records reviewed by FYIVT do not establish whether Burlington later reimbursed any portion of the 2025 expense.
The Legislature added State Police personnel money
The FY2026 budget adjustment increased the State Police personal-services appropriation by $865,762, from $83.28 million to $84.15 million.
The General Fund portion increased by the same amount, according to the Legislature’s FY2026 Budget Adjustment report.
The department’s budget spreadsheet, presented on screen during the Dec. 17 hearing, shows where the entire increase sits: a single line item — 500060, Overtime — for $865,762.
That does not mean $865,762 was spent on Burlington.
The legislation does not identify Burlington as the reason for the increase. The documented Burlington portion is the $100,000-plus overtime pressure described by DPS officials.
Burlington has also doubled its own public-safety tax revenue
The state assistance comes as Burlington residents are themselves paying substantially more for police and fire services.
Dedicated police and fire tax revenue has roughly doubled in three years.
Burlington voters approved a three-cent increase in March 2024, followed by another five-cent increase in March 2026.
The latest increase raises roughly $3 million annually.
State Police are not an unlimited resource
Vermont State Police provide primary law enforcement to roughly 200 communities covering about 90 percent of Vermont’s land area and half its population.
Burlington is not one of those communities. It maintains its own municipal police department.
VSP has also struggled for years with dozens of vacant trooper positions.
That does not establish that a particular rural patrol went uncovered because a trooper was assigned to Burlington, and FYIVT found no public record proving such a direct diversion.
It does establish that the state is supplying additional law-enforcement hours from an agency with its own staffing constraints.
Other state agencies are operating in Burlington too
Scott’s broader Burlington public-safety plan has also involved enforcement personnel from the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Liquor and Lottery.
FYIVT could not locate a public reimbursement agreement showing Burlington pays those agencies for that enforcement activity.
Vermont law allows the Public Safety Commissioner to enter contracts and collect reimbursement for supplemental security and traffic-control services. The authority is spelled out in 20 V.S.A. § 1871.
That was essentially the model Burlington used several years ago.
The current State Police deployment is not.
Six years after Burlington cut its authorized police force, the city has increased its own public-safety taxes, rebuilt portions of its police budget and again has State Police walking downtown.
The difference is who is writing the check.
In 2022, it was Burlington.
For the latest State Police deployment, Vermont officials say it is the state — and Burlington will not be billed.
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Categories: Burlington, Law Enforcement, News Analysis
Burlington’s virtue signaling and seemingly following George Soros’ orders is sucking money from the rest of Vermont so the city can say it is successful
Get it in place & done. Who pays can come later…when results are in.
Sort of like “pass it so we can see what’s IN it?”
The Governor arranging for supplemental enforcement in Burlington is like removing the rotten apple from the barrel, to avoid tainting the rest of the apples. When criminal behavior is allowed to fester, it spreads to other areas. Similarly, President Trump is both vilified and praised for sending the National Guard to cities besieged by crime, that the local officials seem uninterested in properly dealing with.
The moonbat community of Burlington decided years ago that they dont like police in general and wanted them defunded, but they don’t speak for everyone. They blame police and the criminal justice system because a career thug in Minneapolis tried to pass a phony twenty and when he was about to be busted took a multitude of drugs in his possession and died of an overdose and a failing heart, yet police were blamed for his demise. The county medical examiner determined those medical facts, yet his testimony was not allowed to be presented in court. An honest and decent policeman is spending many years in prison because he was photographed restraining the thug in a manner which was taught to him during official training, yet this fact was also not revealed in the courtroom. That agenda-driven railroading by the extreme left was the foundation for Burlington and many other jurisdictions cutting back on police services to this day. The raised, clenched fist of anger rued the day and apparently still does in some places.
If there is one prerequisite for the existence of an organized society it is in the establishment of a system of disincentives and sanctions directed toward those who trespass against others. When humans emerged from the caves and jungles, before we could have any kind of division of labor and a system of currency, we had to establish some assurance to those who venture to create products and services that their day’s labor was not going to be stolen from them. The socialists have lost sight of that concept, and think that everything needed in life should be delivered by the hand of government. Socialists believe that government should play the role of thief and redistributor of goods and services.
The Governor is doing the right thing so Mayor Emma-Hyphen and her band of left wing anarchists on the City Council can go pound sand.
Since first getting into Vermont Law Enforcement in 1981, every class attended at the police academy where a Burlington PD office was present and having a close friend ‘trying’ the PD after getting out as an Army Ranger, the same complaint came up, lack of support by politicians and city for the police department and it’s personnel. As far back as I can remember there had been a high turnover there. probably can go all the way back a blame Mayor B Sanders for the effect
Burlington pays nothing for VSP protection, and yet it costs me, the last I checked, $50 a year for the VSP to respond to a notification of an alarm from my alarm monitoring company, and if I do not pay the yearly fee, they will get around to it, when they get around to it. Mind you, I don’t have a problem with paying $50 a year, It’s just that Burlington should be expected to cover their own arses, they are the cause of this “need”. They cut the size of their police force. They elected a SA that has more compassion for perpetrators than for victims. They dug the hole that they are in. They should either dig their way out, or hire an excavator to dig them out . My shovel is breaking my back !
Anyone that lives in a rural area that is covered by VSP protection and has tried to call them knows they are stretched very thin. I tried to call them once to deal with drug dealing at a home down the road. Four of the druggies drove into a tree on my land near the road. Three of them ran with bags and left the bleeding driver there. The VSP said to call when I see a live deal going on. Gov Scott needs to stop providing police protection to Burlington. They made their mess and need to deal with it themselves.
Did they actually defund the Burlington Police or was the number of officers reduced because they refused to take a Covid shot? It seems to me, that now we know that Covid was just a hoax, shouldn’t these officers be allowed back to work? I guess they could file a class action suit against the city for back pay and benefits and reinstatement. Am I completely wrong about this?
Well…way I see it…Bernie started this mess and since he’s become a millionaire off the taxpayer nut he should…in all due justice…pay for the clean up.
How about it Bernie? Shuck on your barn mucking out boots and clean up the mess you allowed to thrive and grow before it devours the whole country.
This is what happens when you allow vermin to take hold.
It all turns to manure riddled with fire rot rendering it worthless.
When I was a buyer for Independent Foods there it was a decent city then Bernie came along and the vermin followed.
Thanks a lot Bernie.
Sounds like Burlington has run out of “other people’s money”.
Bernie, the pied piper of Burlington, only the rats followed him into the city.
Dan, I remember when he first became Mayor of Burlington he invited homeless people from across the Country to build a tent encampment around City Hall because it was a human right
It’s all funny money and commissioner Morrison is smack in the middle of it
Burlington is sucking money from the rest of Vermont for decades!
Sewer upgrades?
School upgrades?
Didn’t reassess for 20+ years in property tax.
Subsidizing rent for people earning $42k per year?
Subsidizing criminals and drug dealers?
Tiff funding of per projects?
Funding electric cars.
Funding e-bikes at 25 % off?
How many pet projects and grant funded projects?
What about illegal aliens?
What about the once wonderful beaches?
Yeah, Burlington ain’t what it used to be, for sure!
Burlington should ask ICE for assistance.
What a riot!