BURLINGTON – Kelli Perkins knows she’s stepping into an equity role that has seen significant turnover in challenging times.
“I do feel a cautious optimism,” said Perkins, who was appointed Burlington’s director of racial equity, inclusion and belonging last month.
“I feel like the mayor is ready to make it a priority to get this office back on a stable footing and to become a solid, permanent part of the Burlington city landscape, and so I feel excited for that partnership,” she said.
The five-year-old city department has been a revolving door of Black women leaders leaving amid a perceived lack of support.
The equity director position was first created by the City Council with then-Mayor Miro Weinberger’s support in 2019. The new role represented a milestone in the city’s decades of efforts to advance equity, Weinberger said at the time.
During the Black Lives Matter movement and the racial reckoning that heightened after the murder of George Floyd in summer 2020, the REIB office grew to 15 full-time employees. It dispensed special pandemic recovery funds to businesses owned by people of color under Tyeastia Green, the city’s first director of racial equity, inclusion and belonging.
But Green’s tenure was marked by public disagreements with the mayor over how the city should address systemic racism. Weinberger was criticized after he initially sidelined her from a policing study and later launched an investigation into a Juneteenth event that Green helped organize that did not unearth any fraud but found alleged mismanagement.
City leaders and advocates said Green was unfairly targeted based on her race, and that reflected persistent bias in city and state politics. Weinberger’s spokesperson at the time defended the mayor’s record on racial equity and the reasons for the review.
“It’s a hard job, often isolating, particularly when you are the lone dissenting voice in the room,” said Green, who came from Minnesota, and started work in April 2020. She held the position for nearly two years, and now lives in Illinois.
Green resigned in February 2022 but declined to comment last week on her experience, except to say that community engagement was a challenge during the pandemic.
She said she is “rooting for Kelli” to bring the position back up to where it should be: to fight for fairness and inclusion, to consider racial justice in city decisions, and to influence policy in a way that makes Burlington a place where constituents and employees can feel supported.
“Kelli is an excellent choice,” she said in an interview last week. “I think that Kelli is going to be the one that can actually bring this position back to where it should be.”
As the third Black woman to step into the top role, which also had three interim directors, Perkins is aware of but seems unfazed by the department’s embattled history.
She said she hopes to figure out root causes of any issues that persist at a time when DEI efforts are under attack and Black women are bearing the brunt of federal dismissals nationwide, as The Guardian recently reported.
“Right now in America, the landscape is that Black women are the ones who are losing jobs in this anti-DEI landscape and are the most affected,” Perkins said last week in an interview. “So I think this is a really good opportunity for Burlington to really be on the front end, really trying to figure out where we fall in that and what needs to happen.”
Perkins brings two decades of experience at the intersection of educational administration, human resources and diversity, equity and inclusion. She was most recently at Vital Communities, an Upper Valley nonprofit, has a doctorate in education from Northeastern University and a master’s in adult education from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, according to a press release.
A revolving door
Almost eight months after Green resigned in February 2022, Weinberger appointed Kimberly Carson, director of education and human capital development at the Iowa Judicial Branch, to the director position in November 2022 and allocated nearly $2 million to the REIB office. Carson left after 18 months for a new position in North Carolina.
Following Carson’s departure, Burlington elected its first female and openly LGBTQ+ mayor in March 2024, a Progressive who ran on a platform of racial justice and equity.
In one her first tasks as mayor, however, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak slashed the REIB department’s funding in an effort to balance a $13 million budget deficit, including leaving the top position vacant. She also directed the office to be funded by the general fund, a move away from dependence on one-time monies.
The work continued under Christian Berry, a Black woman who was already in the REIB office, who took on the role of interim director and continued providing language access to city residents, developed a plan for equity-based education and training for employees and organized the annual Juneteenth celebration in the Queen City.
Originally from Tennessee, Berry holds a master’s degree from the University of Vermont and is an adjunct professor at the Community College of Vermont. She moved into the equity office late 2023 from her job as the workforce development director in the state Health Department.
At last month’s press conference to announce Perkins’ hire, councilors thanked Berry for her continued hard work. She reverted this week to her former role as the communications and community engagement manager.
The official interim director since November 2024, Berry said she has unofficially led the office since she joined the office in October 2023.
Berry’s accomplishments include setting multi-year strategic vision and implementation plan, launching a new grant program and strengthening relationships with community organizations – all with a staff of three, she said in an interview.
Calls for the city to hire locally and internally for the office were among criticisms around retention voiced in the past. Mulvaney-Stanak called Berry “a steady and thoughtful leader” in her State of the City address this year and said she values promoting employees from within.
Berry said she applied and interviewed for the director position but is equally happy to be on Perkins’ team. “I’m excited to work with her,” she said.
The hiring process is confidential and Perkins was chosen after a national search that netted more than 40 applications. The candidates interviewed were all Vermont-based, said Joe Magee, the deputy chief of staff for the mayor.
Mulvaney-Stanak “is deeply committed to the work of REIB,” Magee wrote in an email Tuesday. Despite having to make “difficult decisions around staffing and programming citywide,” she has protected five full-time positions in the office, he added.
Since Mulvaney-Stanak became mayor, she has worked to clarify the purpose and vision of the department, encouraged department leaders to set goals via an equity lens, fueled cross-departmental collaborations to further integrate the work of the REIB office – such as developing employee trainings on equity with HR – into city government, Magee added.
The REIB office currently has four positions staffed and one vacancy with salaries totaling $390,603.00. An additional $87,360 is budgeted for seasonal expenses, Magee said.
Under the leadership of Perkins, the mayor hopes the REIB office will continue to lead the work to deepen the city’s commitment to racial equity, inclusion and belonging, both in the community and within city government, he added.
Perkins said she plans to build relationships and foster change by having critical conversations about equity with stakeholders in the city and with residents in Burlington.
“It is my goal to continue to elevate the work of this department in breaking down the power dynamics of privilege that exist in our city that we can see and embrace the humanity in all of us,” she said during the brief appointment ceremony at City Hall on Sept. 25. “Burlington can be a city where anyone can thrive and I’m ready to engage in the work ahead to make this a reality.”
Mia Schultz, president of the Rutland Area NAACP, encouraged the city to provide Perkins with the support, stability and resources she needs to succeed in the role.
It is unfortunate, she wrote in an email last week, that a key office, created to center belonging and accountability for the whole community, has turned into a revolving door. “That doesn’t just weaken the office. It undercuts the entire promise of equity in Burlington,” Schultz said.
City councilors echoed support of the new director last month.
City Councilor Melo Grant, chair of the REIB city council committee, said at last week’s press conference she is pleased Perkins has taken on the role “to strengthen the department and to help people in the community be less afraid, because people are afraid of this work right now.”
The work of the REIB office is “vital” in the current climate to ensure equity and inclusivity all around, said City Council President Ben Traverse during the press conference announcing the new hire.
“If Burlington is to remain a resilient community in the face of attacks on DEI at the federal level, we must remain steadfast in our commitment to this work locally,” he said in the press release.
