By Guy Page
Newly-elected Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak of Burlington will seek to reduce the city’s $13 million budget deficit in part by defunding most of the city’s Racial Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity department.
Hiring of new police officers, however, will not be affected by the budget woes. The city PD has been working to build its roster ever since DEI supporters on the City Council partially defunded the force in 2021, in the wake of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis and the rise of the Black Lives Matters movement.
According to an April 25 statement by Mulvaney-Stanak’s office, a budget team led by former mayor Peter Clavelle would help her deliver a plan to reduce the $13 million deficit – four million more than expected. Details of the proposed budget reduction delivered Monday night included defunding (not filling) 22 ‘vacant positions’ in city government, including Director Kim Carson and two-thirds of the RDEI positions. The savings from the RDEI cuts amounts to $1.4 million, according to WCAX news reports.
According to the city’s RDEI website, “The City of Burlington created the Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (REIB) in 2019 and, amidst nationwide protests in defense of Black Lives and uneven impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on BIPOC communities, the City made a commitment to “further racial justice” by allocating an initial $1M to the Racial Justice Fund of the City’s FY21 annual budget, and by declaring racism “a public health crisis.” In 2021, Burlington also became one of the only municipalities in the nation to establish a task force on reparations. “
“The ‘Queen City’ has long blazed the trail for the rest of the state as well as the nation,” the site said.
However, the RDEI was not without controversy within city government. It was considered a thorn in the side of former Mayor Miro Weinberger, who successfully resisted efforts by the first DEI director, Tyeastia Green, to surrender control of police operations and discipline. Green resigned in February 2022 after saying she didn’t feel welcome in Burlington.
Green left her next DEI job in Minneapolis under a cloud of financial mismanagement. The City of Burlington subsequently found she had also mismanaged finances for the Juneteenth celebrations. No fraud was alleged in either case.
After establishing that racism was ‘a public health crisis,’ the City of Burlington funded the RDEI with pandemic-related one-time funding grants. Most of that funding has been spent and federal funds have dried up, requiring city taxpayers to foot the bill for continued operations.