BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The city of Burlington will go without a racial equity director as part of an effort to close a $13-million budget gap.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak’s first weeks in office have been dedicated to closing a $13 million budget gap. The city will not be filling 22 vacant positions, including two-thirds Racial Equity Inclusion and Belonging Department. That includes the director, Kim Carson, whose last day was on Friday. It amounts to savings of about $1.4 million.
“I want to find a sustainable way to keep that incredibly, incredibly important work to continue into the future. And to make sure we have the right size and staffing the right size, folk or the right focus on programs that make impact and then we will find the resources to support that critical work,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
The REIB was created by former Mayor Miro Weinberger in 2020 and the office grew to more than a dozen employees. But Weinberger and the department’s first director, Tyeastia Green, never saw eye-to-eye and she left after two years.
Weinberger hired Carson in 2022, but sources say she spent much of her two on personal leave before resigning earlier this month.
Mark Hughes with the Racial Justice Alliance is among those in the BIPOC community critical of continued under-funding of the REIB
But former City Councilor Ali Dieng says he believes the city needs to take a step back and re-evaluate the department’s future.
“I have seen the department itself, you know, focusing on more events and public art stuff, but not the nitty-gritty of a strategic planning and how do we support people from different races in the city of Burlington. And from my perspective, we need to step back a little bit and try to identify where we go,” Dieng said.
As the city balances the budget, they are also going to be using one-time ARPA funds, leveraging most of the public safety tax approved by voters, doubling the hotel tax, and slightly increasing the gross receipts tax.
“We did this fairly, asking both residential taxpayers and the business community to contribute to closing the gap and undertaking a comprehensive review of general fund expenses to identify areas for right-sizing,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
The mayor says they are not freezing hiring for the police department, which is trying to rebuild from cuts made by the City Council four years ago.