Updated on May 13, 2025.
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.
At a council meeting on Monday night, Democratic members criticized the mayor for not giving them enough time to digest her plan. Her fellow Progressives, meanwhile, largely sympathized with her for having to make tough decisions. Councilors on both sides of the table lamented how the cuts would affect quality of life for the terminated employees and city residents.
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 both the council and Board of Finance meetings on Monday night, former city workers told councilors that their dismissals were humiliating and unfair. Former parks employee Joanne Putzier said she was let go a few months before her planned retirement after 43 years with the city.
Her colleague, Melissa Cate, accused the city of ageism, saying half of the fired workers in her department were over 50. Two others were people of color, she said, adding, “that’s a little troublesome from a progressive leadership.”
Cate said that between herself, Putzier and fellow division director Gary Rogers, who was also let go, they had a combined 100 years of experience. She also questioned why positions funded with one-time money weren’t eliminated first.
Former parks director Jesse Bridges chastised the city for treating dedicated employees like criminals by escorting them out. Cuts may be necessary, Bridges said, but the city’s approach to them will “crush the morale and culture of this organization.”
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 city will also discontinue its Christmas tree pickup program. 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.
The budget also includes some investments, including funding for 10 additional police officers and a larger allotment for Howard Center’s Street Outreach Team, which responds to calls involving drugs and mental health issues. One new position, a “senior adviser on housing strategy,” would be based in the mayor’s office.
Councilors expressed varying degrees of frustration at Monday’s meeting. Council President Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5) said councilors were left in the dark and should have been consulted earlier as the administration mulled cuts.
“It’s hard for the city council to be a good partner in this work if information is not made available as it’s ready,” agreed Councilor Mark Barlow (D-North District). “I’m hoping going forward that we’ll be more fully incorporated into this process.”
Mulvaney-Stanak acknowledged their concerns but also said she presented budget information on the same timeline as the previous administration. She also defended the way employees were given notice, saying the city doesn’t have a formal reduction-in-force policy.
“It was extremely difficult to have to navigate this very stressful, impactful moment in the city’s history without a roadmap about how to do this as an organization,” she said.
Councilor Buddy Singh (D-South District) said he’s concerned that merging Business & Workforce staff with CEDO will detract from the former department’s mission to support merchants, many of whom are struggling. Late last week, more than 100 businesspeople sent an open letter to the mayor’s office demanding the city take action on public safety issues downtown.
At one point, Councilor Becca Brown McKnight (D-Ward 6) claimed that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a former mayor who founded CEDO, “is quite unhappy with the change.” Mulvaney-Stanak countered that she hadn’t heard directly from the senator.
A spokesperson for the senator later told Seven Days that Sanders made no such comment and does not weigh in on Burlington issues that are out of his purview.
Several councilors reflected on the comments made by the former parks employees. Councilor Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2) struck a personal tone, saying he worked with Putzier years ago and that Rogers was with the parks department back when his own children played youth soccer.
“It’s incredibly hard for me to separate the people from the positions,” Bergman said. “I know that my job is to do that.”
Others aired concerns about the remaining employees’ ability to shoulder extra work, including Colby Delaire, president of the AFSCME union. He suggested the administration either find a way to reduce that burden or pay workers more to take it on. He also expressed hope that there would be fewer staff reductions in future budgets.
“Even one cut is too many for us,” Delaire said.
Councilor Evan Litwin (D-Ward 7), meantime, said he thinks the budget may need to be cut even deeper.
Councilors will continue to discuss the budget over a series of meetings this month. Mulvaney-Stanak has until June 15 to present a final version, which must be approved before the new fiscal year begins in July.
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This article appears in May 7-13, 2025.
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