Committee Will Look Into Pros and Cons of Appointed Town Clerk

The Town Clerk is responsible for keeping all the vital records for a town, running elections, and much more. Clerkship is a full-time job with a salary and benefits. And, for hundreds of years, Burlington's Town clerk has been elected.

With the amount of expertise and experience required to be a Town Clerk, and the importance of this role with keeping order during elections and all year long, many question why the position is elected. Voters aren't always equipped to judge whether or not a candidate is qualified to serve in the role, and there is a lot the newly-elected Town Clerk would need to be able to act upon immediately after taking office that would be difficult for someone with no experience in a clerk's office.

Many towns recently have shifted their Town Clerk from elected to appointed, but appointing a clerk would come with its own set of concerns. Appointments in Burlington, for example, are usually recommended by the Town Administrator and made by the Select Board, which has the potential to introduce partiality into the process. The Town Clerk role by nature must be an impartial one, as elections must be run impartially.

This May a Warrant Article was introduced at Town Meeting to see whether Town Meeting would put on the April 2025 election ballot the question of making Town Clerk an appointed role in Burlington. The article was withdrawn, but town administration walked away with feedback from the body about what needs to accompany a future such article. Namely, a job description and a clear reporting structure are expected to accompany the re-introduced version of this article in September.

At this week's Select Board meeting, the Board voted to create a committee to look into the pros and cons of having an appointed versus an elected Town Clerk. The Committee is to have 2 Select Board members, 4 Town Meeting members, and 1 election/poll worker. In order to carry out this exploratory work in time for the article to be re-introduced at the September town Meeting, the appointments will be made at the June 24 Select Board meeting. If you're a Town Meeting Member or election/poll worker interested in serving on this committee, please email a letter of interest to the Select Board by June 21.

The Committee's work will be presented to Town Meeting in September, and Town Meeting will vote on whether or not to put the question on the ballot for April's town-wide election. The change would have to be approved by a majority of the voters in April to take effect.