Burke's Annual Town Meeting

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Created on Monday, 02 March 2026 17:15

Written by Paige Lenahan

Burke- The town of Burke held their town meeting March 2nd with a budget proposal almost exactly the same as 2025.

 At 6:30, Monday evening, Burke residents gathered at the Town Offices Building for their annual town meeting. There, they were presented with 29 articles that would be on today's ballot.

One of the major topics was the town budget of $3,309,180.87. While it seems like a lot of money, it is only $84 more than what the budget was in 2025. The town tries to create their budget in a way that does not increase it too significantly.

"We just do every little thing we can to try to save our residents money," Explains Burke's Town Administrator, Jim Sullivan, "but still provide a really good life and a good value for their tax dollar."

Although the town budget stayed relatively the same, taxes may still be going up for Burke residents. The Kingdom East School District's budget increased which will cause a tax increase of 5.82%. Multiple residents brought up concerns about the amount of money the district has budgeted. For those without children in a district school, seeing taxes raise this much is worrying. Many were asking why the school needs this much, and confused on the math.

"The school education costs are just really off the charts, and we don't have any control of that," says Sullivan, " It makes it hard to manager the town when you don't know what that "x" is going to equal, but you know it's going to hurt."

One of the biggest articles in the meeting was the $30,000 for the East Burke Village Water District. Topics like this tend to have split opinions since a large amount of money is going to only one side of town. Those one the recieving side tend to approve, while the other side tends to bring up more questions and concerns.

The Town of Burke reported that everything on their ballot passed.