The campaign ran for the better part of six months. Taking hold in September 2025, Mayor Gary Christenson — in office for roughly 15 years — and senior administrators pressed the case for a Proposition 2½ override, warning that without it, the city would need to close a roughly $5.4 million gap. That gap number increased to $8.2 million before two ballot questions were voted on March 31, 2026.
Closing the gap, according to city presentations, could mean laying off as many as 60 employees across General Government, Police, Fire, DPW, and the Library. A city presentation from that campaign illustrated the scenario department by department, though the document itself cautioned that the breakdown was 'for illustrative purposes' and did not reflect decisions already made about where cuts would actually land [1].
Now, we see indications the city is hiring. And we are hearing the city's earlier layoff projections are far from what is actually happening. And we've recently heard 'The people whose jobs were eliminated from the budget are still showing up to work every day and being paid.' What is happening in city government?
Voters rejected the override in a close vote on March 31, 2026. Soon after the polls closed, the 'Yes for Malden' campaign committee posted a statement on Facebook conceding the loss and quoting city officials. Mayor Christenson called the result disappointing but said his finance team would 'begin the difficult task of identifying necessary reductions to balance the budget.' City Council President Amanda Linehan struck a similar note. City Councillor-at-Large Carey McDonald, the Council's Finance Chair, was more pointed: 'We made our best pitch, but the cuts we'll have to make will be painful. That's why it was so important that the voters themselves made this call. The deck is stacked against cities like ours.'
Campaign finance disclosures on file with the state's Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) show that Christenson's and McDonald's own campaign accounts had contributed financial support to the 'Yes for Malden' committee earlier in the campaign — meaning both were speaking, that night, about the consequences of a ballot question their campaigns had helped fund the push for. Specifically, on March 4, 2026, the Christenson Committee contributed $2,000, after contributing $1,500 on December 23, 2025. The Committee to Elect Carey McDonald contributed $500 to the override advocacy efforts on January 2, 2026 2. (McDonald is now also a candidate for the state senate in the 5th Middlesex District 3. Given that his election-night quote about 'painful' cuts is used here alongside evidence of continued hiring, that candidacy is disclosed for the same reason Karen Colón Hayes's mayoral run is disclosed below showing electoral interests in how this story is read.)
Manufactured austerity?
Shortly after the vote, the administration disclosed that a $1.6 million error in the city's Net School Spending calculation — which the mayor later described as 'a regrettable but honest human error' — made the budget outlook look worse than it actually was, a disclosure that came only after the vote had already happened. Was the 'honest human error' the kind of blunder that could have been avoided, or is it a symptom of Malden math? 4
Layoff notices went out in May 5. Going on four months after the Proposition 2.5 ballot questions for tax increases were voted down, according to a longtime city employee and union leader who spoke to MNN on condition of anonymity, the picture on the ground looks little like the layoffs the city spent six months warning about. The earlier threat of 60 layoffs now looks like manufactured austerity to scare voters into passing the Prop 2.5 override.
The buyout
After the layoff notices went out, the union negotiated a buyout for members of the Municipal Bargaining Group — city hall clerks, DPW, Cemetery, Police and Fire civilian staff, Library, Health Department inspectors, and several other classifications. The city's opening offer was $15,000; after a union counterproposal, it settled at $25,000 plus benefits, for anyone who filed retirement papers by June 30.
Six members were interested. The city capped it at five.
'They excluded the Animal Control Officer, claiming it was not cost-effective,' our source said. 'Ironically, they are citing cost-effectiveness while failing to follow through on their own layoff notices. The Animal Control Officer retired anyway.'
That detail checks out against the public record: on July 2, a Facebook post from KCH for Malden Mayor read, 'Congratulations on Kevin's retirement! We now have a position open for Animal Control Officer,' accompanied by the city's own job posting for the role — a posting that itself was later removed from the city's site, on July 1, without explanation. (KCH is At-Large City Councillor Karen Colón Hayes, who has declared her candidacy for mayor in 2027; she has been posting city job openings regularly on that page, which is itself worth noting given her electoral interest in drawing attention to hiring activity so soon after a campaign built around the threat of layoffs. The postings themselves are the city's own, independently verifiable at cityofmalden.org/jobs regardless of who's sharing them.)
The source's account also makes clear why the city agreed to a buyout at all: it wasn't offered out of generosity. 'The buyout was only offered because the City knew that another employee and I would be exercising our bumping rights based on seniority,' the long-time union leader said. 'I had seniority over nearly everyone and could have selected from most available positions.' As of this writing, the source says the $25,000 payment itself hasn't arrived: 'We still have not received our payment, even though we were told it would be issued as a special check on June 30.'
The positions that didn't disappear
As we understand it now, two employees retained bumping rights and could have displaced the four least-senior employees in comparable roles. Before June 30, the city was reportedly given the list of positions those bumps would affect.
'Today is July 15th and I am telling you that the city did nothing with it,' according to our source. 'The people whose jobs were eliminated from the budget are still showing up to work every day and being paid. No one has bumped anyone and now the city is posting jobs.'
The cadet positions offer a specific example. All of them were eliminated from the budget, and four cadets received layoff notices — but according to the source, three of the four are still reporting to work. A fourth cadet, hired around April 1, didn't have bumping rights at all because of when they were hired. Separately, the city declined to extend bumping rights to two part-time employees, citing language in the collective bargaining agreement that the source says doesn't specifically address part-time staff; one of those employees has since filed a grievance.
One buyout recipient, the source said, was brought back almost immediately — as a paid consultant, training her own replacement, before the position she'd vacated was even posted publicly. 'The city did not feel the need to even post that position until yesterday, two weeks later,' the source said. 'So she has been doing the job without training anyone and being paid as a consultant.'
The source shared their own read on why: 'In my opinion, they are delaying the process to avoid complying with the collective bargaining agreement and to protect employees they recently hired into three of the positions that should be subject to bumping. I believe those positions were filled in March.' MNN has not independently verified this interpretation of the city's motive; it's presented here as the source's own assessment, not as an established fact.
Meanwhile, the city is hiring
Since the override failed, the city has posted eleven new 'New Government Jobs' alerts three of which were subsequently pulled from the site without explanation:
| Posted | Department — Role | Status | Salary / Pay Range | City's stated reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 9 | Engineering — Junior Civil Engineer | Active | — | — |
| June 11 | HR — HR Generalist | Removed June 11 | — | — |
| June 23 | Mayor's Office — Constituent Services Representative | Removed June 23 | — | — |
| June 25 | OSPCD — Housing Program Coordinator | Active | $75,432.24–$83,263.07 (FY26); SPA3/Non-Union | Vacancy — 100% grant funded |
| June 25 | DPW Parks — Tree Climber/Laborer | Active | $25.88–$27.56/hr without CDL, $30.36–$32.04 with CDL (FY26) | Backfill — existing vacancy |
| July 1 | MPD — Animal Control Officer | Removed July 1 | — | Position vacated by retirement |
| July 13 | Inspectional Services — Senior Health Inspector | Active | $71,102.12–$78,483.43 (FY24 scale) | — |
| July 14 | MPD — Administrative Assistant to the Police Chief | Active | $67,676.02–$74,701.65 (FY24 scale); CLK4 | Open due to retirement |
| July 14 | OSPCD — Executive Assistant | Active | $67,676.02–$74,701.65 (FY24 scale); CLK4 | Open due to retirement |
| July 15 | Senior Center — Clerk | Active | $59,815.74–$66,025.38 (FY24 scale); CLK3 | Open due to a retirement |
| July 15 | Public Facilities — Mechanical Maintenance Technician | Active | $62,843.81–$72,853.20 (FY26); PF2/IUPAT District 35 | — |
*(Job IDs 348–358 on cityofmalden.org/Jobs.aspx. Postings that were 'removed' disappeared from the city's site at some point after they went up, for reasons the city has not explained; MNN does not know whether they were filled, withdrawn, or something else.)*
Not all of this hiring bears on the budget picture the same way, and the city's own postings supply some of that context directly. The Housing Program Coordinator role is explicitly listed as '100% Grant Funded' — money that wouldn't have been available to cover general-fund payroll regardless of the override outcome. And several of the other postings — the Administrative Assistant to the Police Chief, the OSPCD Executive Assistant, and the Senior Center Clerk — are listed by the city itself as open because of retirements, not as newly created positions; the DPW Tree Climber/Laborer posting is described as a 'backfill due to a vacancy.' Readers shouldn't take every posting on this list as evidence of the same thing: some of it looks like ordinary turnover in a city of Malden's size, grant-funded roles, or backfills of jobs that already existed before the override campaign began — distinct from more specific claim, above, that positions eliminated in this year's budget are still being staffed.
A twelfth posting, for a part-time Traffic Supervisor (Crossing Guard) at $25/hour for 10 hours a week, also appears in the city's listings — but it was posted March 18, 2026, before the override vote failed, so it isn't counted above as part of the post-override hiring picture. Is the post-override hiring activity a pivot or retraction from slides and information presented publicly prior to voting, which detailed the potential loss of up to 60 municipal?
The credibility gap: "crying deficit"
What the source wants answered is narrower, and it's the question this piece can't yet resolve on its own: 'What happened to this BIG DEFICIT that the city has been spouting to all of its constituents? Did it all of a sudden disappear? If not, where is all this money coming from and how are they paying people to work in positions that do not exist in the budget?'
MNN reached out to the Mayor's Office and Human Resources on the evening of July 15 with specific questions about the buyout, bumping rights, current staffing levels, and the reasons behind the removed job postings, requesting a response by 10 AM on July 16 ahead of publication. As of the 10 AM deadline, the Mayor's Office has not provided a response to these inquiries.
A note on sourcing
Malden News Network / The Civic Broadside wrote to five city employees by email before 5:30 PM on July 16, asking for a courtesy of a reply by 10 AM on July 17. None responded as of publication time. Three of the city employees were from the mayor's office (including the Mayor and the city's Communication Director); two of the city employees we emailed are employed in the Human Resources department according to city records.
This account relies heavily on public records and a single source, a longtime Malden city employee and union leader, granted anonymity given their relationship with the city. Specific claims — the buyout negotiation history, the unpaid check, the bumping-rights timeline, the characterization of the city's motives — reflect that source's account and have not all been independently verified by MNN. Where public documentation corroborates a specific claim (the Animal Control Officer posting, the election-night quotes, the OCPF contribution record), that's noted explicitly above. Salary ranges, posting dates, and closing dates for city job listings are drawn directly from the city's own job-posting pages; because the city does not publish these listings as PDFs, MNN's copies exist as screenshots of the postings rather than a single downloadable document.