Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak during a press conference Thursday said the city’s soon-to-be interim police chief, Shawn Burke, will serve the department under a two-year contract, but is not expected to stay on in the role.
Burke, who currently leads South Burlington’s police department, announced Wednesday he was resigning from that role, effective March 21, to step in as Burlington’s interim chief. He previously served 21 years with the Queen City department.
He will make an annual salary of $172,092, according to Joe Magee, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff. Burlington’s outgoing police chief, Jon Murad, makes an annual salary of $155,092.
Since the city is reclassifying the police chief position, Burke’s salary needs approval from Burlington’s Board of Finance, Magee said, but his appointment does not need approval from the full City Council.
Murad, who announced in November that he would step down, plans to depart “on or before” April 7, according to a city press release.
Burke has agreed to step in as interim chief on March 24 and serve the department under a two-year contract — first as head of the department and then in a “leadership support role” after a new chief is hired, Mulvaney-Stanak said.
“My goal remains, ideally, hiring the permanent candidate by the end of 2025,” she said at Thursday’s press conference.
Burke, in an email, said the Burlington Police Department “invested a great deal in me during my two decades there,” and added that this was “a time where I can return and make a meaningful contribution.”
He added that while he does not plan on seeking to stay in the position, he is committed to “seeing the entire permanent police chief process through to ensure smooth transition and success” for the department and administration.
Burke’s appointment comes at a difficult time for the city police department. An internal survey of rank-and-file members this summer showed a department struggling with both recruitment and retention issues, with 75% of officers surveyed calling morale “poor” or “terrible.”
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Some officers have taken issue with department leadership, while others have pointed fingers at the mayoral administration and the council.
Burlington City Council President Ben Traverse, in a phone interview, said the department was “very much in need of stability as we continue to work to rebuild it.” The city “couldn’t have asked for a better candidate to bring that kind of stability and put us on firm footing,” Traverse said.
Mulvaney-Stanak said she and Burke are “truly aligned on how and what we need to do to lead Burlington forward in terms of community safety.”
Burke joined the South Burlington Police Department in 2018, becoming chief the following year. Before that, he spent more than two decades on Burlington’s police force, serving as deputy chief of operations at the time that he left in 2018.
During her search for an interim chief, Mulvaney-Stanak said it became clear the department needed “an internal focus.”
“There’s a lot of issues that relate to just the internal operations of our police department,” she said. “And that’s, again, why I think I couldn’t find a better person, frankly, who has such a long history with the Burlington Police Department, as well as, obviously, leadership experience from the South Burlington police department, to look at some of our internal struggles.”
She added, “Our recruitment strategy needs a good, healthy and honest review.”
Burke, in a statement, said, “The mayor and I have had lengthy conversations about this critical role and share common goals toward building a strong and safe Burlington which benefits all of Chittenden County and the state of Vermont.”
Burlington will begin the process of searching for a police chief by hiring a national search firm.
Ingrid Jonas, Burlington’s advisor on community safety, said the mayor is expected to make a decision on which firm to use by the end of the week.
Mulvaney-Stanak said that while Burke has not expressed interest in remaining in the role, things could change as the hiring process begins in earnest.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being mayor, it’s being flexible and not predicting how things will go,” she said. “We’ll see how that transpires.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington’s incoming interim police chief says he will not seek to stay on in the role.