This is purely anecdotal, but my experience as one the first BTV residents to have BT fiber installed was pretty indicative of how messed up it was from the start.

I was a fervent supporter and lobbied hard to be part of the initial roll out. I took the day off work to be home when they came and when the first couple of trucks arrived I was excited, but as a Project Manager myself I realized right away that there were far too many contractors working on this project.

Six guys worked to install fiber cable throughout my house. From basement to second floor. That is a level of overkill that made me immediately suspect. There is no need whatsoever to take the fiber further than the pole outside of your house. Cat 6 or even Cat 5e cable is capable of providing more than enough bandwidth to a single family dwelling. Over the next year or so I watched in increasing alarm as the same group of contractors installed BT fiber on every house in my neighborhood. It was madness, and so wasteful. Over the years they spent millions rolling out fiber, and much of it was totally unnecessary.

The run-away costs were hidden from the BTV taxpayers for a number of years partially due to an unapproved transfer of funds to BT from the general fund.

Taxpayers were unaware until 2009 that the city was also burning through $16.9 million transferred without public knowledge or approval by Jonathan Leopold, the city’s chief administrative officer.

At the time, Leopold argued the general funds were a kind of loan to be repaid when the city borrowed enough to replace it. “We would address the issue of non-compliance when we felt we had a cure,” Leopold told the Burlington Free Press in an August 2011 article.

The city council, however, refused to authorize the piling on of any new debt for Burlington Telecom.

Leopold resigned, but he wasn’t charged with committing any crime. Because he didn’t take money from the general fund for himself, Chittendon Superior Court found he had “invested” the mismanaged funds in the city’s existing infrastructure and wasn’t responsible to repay any of it.

Source. Slightly biased, but the facts are straight forward.

I spent a bit of time working with the "Keep it Local" folks, but eventually moved out of BTV and just left it behind. It's a shame really, it could have been an amazing public utility.