With Layoffs, Burlington Mayor Presents Balanced Budget

Burlington officials on Monday said they’ve figured out how to close an $8 million gap in next year’s budget, largely by cutting staff and programs.

The city will make $5.4 million in cuts to balance the budget. The remaining $2.6 million will come from new revenues, including a modest tax increase, officials said at a press conference.

The news comes just days after Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak announced 18 city workers would be laid off. Seven other vacant positions would be eliminated, for a total of 25 reductions.

Officials say the city workforce has become unsustainably large in recent years, a problem detailed in this week’s Seven Days cover story. Nearly 100 positions were created over the past decade; 37 of them initially were paid with one-time dollars, such as federal coronavirus relief money that has basically run out.

“I don’t think it’s strategic, nor was it sustainable or responsible, to be perfectly blunt about it,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. “It is not good for the employees holding that position, and it overpromises what we’re able to afford as a city.”

The city has had to contend with a multimillion-dollar shortfall for two consecutive years. Last year’s $14.2 million budget gap was closed by raising fees, cutting vacant positions and using one-time money but managed to avoid layoffs.

Several departments lost positions to balance the coming year’s budget. Parks, Recreation & Waterfront took the biggest hit, with layoffs of eight workers, including two division directors. The Community & Economic Development Office had five positions cut, according to city officials.

No police officers lost their jobs, but their civilian counterparts did. Cuts included the department’s public information officer and a “special projects coordinator,” plus five vacant positions. Four of those are community service officers, unarmed personnel who handle quality-of-life calls.

Of the 25 positions, 21 were full time and four part time. Half of them were union jobs represented by AFSCME, the city’s largest union of more than 300 workers.

One department head was eliminated as a result of a planned merger between CEDO and Business & Workforce Development. Mulvaney-Stanak wouldn’t confirm which director was fired, though only one of the two attended Monday’s presser: Kara Alnasrawi of Business & Workforce Development. CEDO director Brian Pine was absent and didn’t return a subsequent interview request on Monday afternoon.

Mulvaney-Stanak plans to announce the new leadership of the merged department on Wednesday.

Employees who got the ax were escorted from their workplace last week. The city offered them 60 days’ pay and health insurance through the end of July, after which they’ll be paid out any accrued leave. At least three city workers whose jobs were terminated attended Monday’s press conference but declined to speak to reporters.

Other savings were found by slashing programs. In September, the city will close the Center of Recreation & Education, which runs a series of programs at the Old North End Community Center. The space, rented from the Champlain Housing Trust, offers yoga, arts classes and other programs for seniors.

BCA will lose some programs for adults, and the general fund will no longer cover grants from the BCA Community Fund, which in the past has supported individual art projects and larger efforts, including the Ramble in the Old North End. The city’s Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion & Belonging will zero out its Empowerment Fund, which supports efforts to strengthen communities of Black, Indigenous and people of color.

The program cuts, layoffs and other trims will save a combined $3.9 million. Putting the number in context, officials said continuing to fund these items would cost the owner of a home valued at $500,000 about $325 more per year in property taxes.

To raise more revenue, the city plans to increase the public safety tax by a penny and bump taxes for both parks and highway by a half cent, netting about $900,000. The same homeowner will pay $35 more in taxes as a result. The city is also anticipating $1.7 million in growth in the grand list.

Mulvaney-Stanak has until June 15 to present a final budget to the city council. Meantime, councilors will weigh in at their meeting on Monday night.