Burlington Mayor Says She's Closed Budget Gap With No Layoffs

Burlington has a plan to make up an $11 million budget gap without any layoffs.

Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak on Wednesday presented a spending plan for next fiscal year that would allow the city to close a multimillion-dollar gap without impacting what she called “core services.” Her plan would save $3 million by eliminating or not immediately filling 27 vacant positions, along with cuts across multiple departments. The city will raise another $3 million through the 5-cent increase to the police and fire tax that voters approved on Town Meeting Day.

The spending proposal would avoid another wave of painful layoffs. Last year, the city fired 18 city workers, some of whom were long-tenured and publicly criticized the way they were let go. The mayor sought to avoid a similar result this year by looking at unfilled positions and searching for extra revenue to plug the gap. In response to criticism from Democrats on the city council, she also presented her budget a month before it was due.

Mulvaney-Stanak, flanked by department heads at a press conference in city hall on Wednesday morning, cautioned that her proposal would not fix the structural financial issues the administration has faced as one-time funding for new positions has dried up.

“This budget is not about cuts for the sake of cuts. It is not an austerity budget. It’s about making government more sustainable, more resilient, and more focused on delivering results for the people we serve and working hard every day to make this city even more affordable,” she said at the press conference.

The $112 million budget proposal is up $5 million from last year’s plan. Municipal taxes will go up by 6 percent, more than last year’s 3 percent increase but not quite as hefty as the 11 percent increase passed in 2024. If the budget is approved, homeowners of a property assessed at $353,000, the median value of a Burlington home, will pay $3,211 in municipal taxes, up about $200 from last year.

Chief administrative officer Katherine Schad said the city would raise $1 million by collecting delinquent property taxes and other money following a pandemic-era moratorium. The city also has $1 million in one-time federal funds to use, and officials found another $2.5 million through “expenditure control,” which involves tamping down what Schad called a tendency to “overbudget” on city expenses.

The city could save some money by implementing a furlough program, through which city employees take unpaid time off. Crucial savings — $2.1 million — were found by eliminating 13 unfilled positions and holding open 14 more. An additional $900,000 was saved by shaving down budgets across departments. The mayor’s office has branded this approach “solidarity budgeting.”

Doreen Kraft, the city’s longest-serving department head who has led Burlington City Arts since the 1980s, said on Wednesday that she embraced this effort. Her department got creative to save some money while also expanding public arts programming.

Burlington City Arts will forgo hiring a new director of philanthropy and will shift that responsibility to its non-municipal booster organization, the nonprofit Burlington City Arts Foundation. The department has also decided not to replace former BCA Center curator Heather Farrell, who took the curator job at the Fleming Museum earlier this year. Instead, BCA will invite guest curators from the community to pick up the slack. The department has alsol reduced certain offerings; for example, the annual Festival of Fools at the Church Street Marketplace will only be two days this year, not three.

While cutting back, Burlington City Arts is also collaborating with other departments to bring summer concerts back to Waterfront Park. Kraft praised the spirit behind the mayor’s “solidarity budgeting” process.

“BCA is committed to showing up for artists, for the business community and we will continue to lead with creativity, with partnership, with friendship, with all of our colleagues, and a focus on the arts and cultural programming that strengthen the whole community, knowing that a rising tide raises all ships,” she said.

The Department of Public Works was in a good position to trim costs after the city council voted earlier this year to hire a contractor for recycling collection. The department was struggling to fill the four recycling roles, and eliminating them and two others will bring its full-time employee count from 54 to 48.

Public Works Director Chapin Spencer said he ended up satisfied with the level of investment being made in the budget toward paving, sidewalks and other capital projects.

“It doesn’t give us everything, but it is a forward-looking investment,” he said.

The splinter tax increase approved by voters in March will buoy the police and fire department, which were made off limits to cuts in budget discussions. Interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke announced that the department now has the funds to hire up to 10 new officers. The budget also provides funding for ongoing renovations to the city’s aging police station. The Burlington Fire Department, meanwhile, will be able to add two new firefighters to their roster and replace aging vehicles in their fleet.

Mulvaney-Stanak will now ask the Burlington City Council to weigh in at their meeting next Monday, May 18. She said she welcomed the council’s careful review but warned that “any significant changes at this stage would carry real consequences across departments, services and the long-term financial outlook for the city.”

Some Democrats, who hold a slight majority on the council, are already raising concerns. Council President Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5) said in an interview that this budget proposal was “kicking the can down the road” and that absent more severe cuts — and likely layoffs — the city will again face a major budget gap next year.

Mulvaney-Stanak called this “weak criticism,” noting that she had seen “zero proposals” from any Democrat for alternative solutions.

“This structural budget gap existed before I became mayor, and I’ve been working hard to solve it,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. “If we tried to solve it in one year, it would have drastic negative impacts on the city’s ability to even operate.”