Vermont's largest city fires workers to save taxpayer money - then rehires some

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

Just weeks after laying off 18 employees to reduce spending, the Burlington mayor says she has rehired a bunch of them.

Like, are taxpayers supposed to think Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak isn't hoodwinking them by claiming she's cut their taxes?

Hard to tell with this shell game, also commonly known as the proverbial revolving door.

In a new budget update, the mayor proudly itemized all the ways she's allegedly cut taxes, pointing out how she jettisoned 18 employees and decided not to fill an additional seven vacant positions.

So far, so good.

But then she couldn't help herself, quickly adding, "I'd like to share an important update. Several of the people who were laid off have found other positions within city government."

Funny how the mayor never disclosed or explained what those "other positions" are.

Why, if she is extolling cutting taxes by trimming the payroll, would she go out of her way to bring attention to the "important" rehiring of "several" of those she just fired?

To be sure, Mulvaney-Stanak isn't necessarily saying she's refilled the jobs she just eliminated.

But to taxpayers it's a distinction without a difference.

If that's not enough, Mulvaney-Stanak gets even more confusing. Or maybe she's confused...

Right after saying she's rehired several of the fired, the first-term mayor immediately added this next line:

"These decisions were not taken lightly, and were informed by our service inventory, studies, and reports.

"We identified which city services are essential to residents and how we can deliver them effectively while keeping affordability in mind."

Huh?

If by "these decisions" Mulvaney-Stanak means layoffs, then why does that explanation follow the "important update" on the rehires?

Who knows.

Meanwhile, the mayor says the city added 100 people to its payroll in the last 10 years, some of them paid initially with federal funds that later dried up.

The biggest mistake was for the city to accept the federally-financed positions in the first place, knowing full well that once the federal dollars dried up the city would have to start financing the jobs with local tax money.

The way to reduce the payroll is not to fill positions as they become vacant, contrary to what the mayor just announced she did despite having first supposedly laid off people to try to reverse that trend.

Mulvaney-Stanak claims she is trying to do her best to fill what she calls a $10 million budget gap that was preceded the previous year with a $14 million shortfall.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the way to cut spending is to reduce the payroll, which is government's biggest expense.

The mayor's first-term budget crisis is not occurring in a vacuum.

Mulvaney-Stanak's attempts to put a good face on her management of Burlington's financial crisis are still being overshadowed by a scandal of her own making that surfaced a year ago just two months into her term as the city's new chief executive officer.

Vermont Daily Chronicle has widely reported the mayor's accepting free food for her and her spouse from a local soup kitchen, claiming they were having trouble making ends meet despite the fact both of them are on the city payroll making hundreds of thousands of dollars in combined salaries.

The scandal just weeks ago became even worse when Mulvaney-Stanak acknowledged that her spouse, who heads the municipal water department, just accepted a salary raise at the recommendation of her spouse's tin-ear boss, the embattled public works director.

If Mulvaney-Stanak expects to be reelected to a second term next year, she's going to have to get serious, like, real serious, about fixing the city's money mess.

A good start would be announcing a new round of widespread layoffs followed by two acknowledgments - one, that it was totally wrong for her and her spouse to accept free food and two, for her spouse to accept a salary increase.

The mayor should also tell the taxpayers that her spouse's salary increase is immediately being rescinded.

And then she should take one final step to restore any credibility she ever had - take her spouse off the city payroll completely.

The mayor's family should not be pulling down two municipal salaries while taxpayers are struggling to pay their property bills and put groceries on the table.

Lastly, Mulvaney-Stanak should check her arrogance at the door, issue a full-bodied apology for accepting free food from a soup kitchen and reimburse it for the unpaid meals that her and her spouse fraudulently accepted.