Valerie Watson, interim director of Transportation and Mobility, told the Transportation Advisory Board on June 9 that the City of Boulder is operating under a hiring freeze that leaves the department with roughly a 30% vacancy rate and that the city has approved limited exemptions to hire for critical maintenance and operations positions.
Watson said the vacancies are concentrated in maintenance and seasonal positions — for example snow‑plow and street‑sweeping roles — and that the city is prioritizing exemptions for positions tied to public safety and essential operations. “We were able to get a few exemptions to hire some existing vacancies that really fall into that category,” Watson said, describing forthcoming hiring activity in the next few weeks for maintenance roles.
Why this matters: Watson said many positions have been persistently vacant because of market and recruitment challenges; if core maintenance roles remain unfilled, she warned, the city’s levels of service for transportation maintenance and operations could be affected. Watson directed TAB members to a forthcoming public engagement process called Fund Our Future, which will look at long‑term financial strategy and levels of service across city departments.
Questions and context: TAB members pressed for detail about potential service impacts and were encouraged to follow Fund Our Future and the city’s comprehensive plan updates. Watson said most teams remain staffed and that the immediate exemptions are intended to cover critical needs; she described the hiring freeze’s timeline as dependent on economic forecasts and city manager decisions and did not provide a firm lift date.
Ending: Watson advised TAB members that the city will hold community conversations later this year on funding priorities and invited board members to participate in the Fund Our Future process to discuss levels of service and tradeoffs if vacancy rates persist.