Denver’s Finance and Governance Committee unanimously sent two measures that make about $45 million in budget cuts on for full council approval. The cuts, including a hiring freeze and some service reductions, will help fund Mayor Mike Johnston’s immigrant sheltering program.
The program, which is estimated to cost $90 million, seeks to assist immigrants — including those who crossed into the United States illegally — in settling in Denver or moving on to other cities. At last count, the city has helped almost 41,000 immigrants, roughly half of which have moved on to different cities with transportation tickets purchased with taxpayer money.
However, city officials are struggling to accurately track those who have stayed. This is largely due to the sheer volume of people, roughly 20,000, who remain in Denver. This dwarfs the mayor’s earlier “House1000” program, which sought to house 1,000 homeless people. It has since been renamed “All in Mile High” and has a dashboard tracking specific outcomes, but the city immigrant response does not.
While the mayor was able to find about $45 million to fund the program off the bat, including $8 million that rolled over from last year and a federal grant, that only paid for roughly half of the new program. Previous cost estimates were as high as $120 million, and higher.
City agencies were asked to find money in their budgets to pay for it. Through various means, including a hiring freeze and delay of capital projects, the money was found — but still needs to clear the full city council. Previous budget cuts saw curtailed Department of Motor Vehicles hours, recreation center(s) open hours cut, and no flowers planted in city parks this year.
After roughly an hour of questions and reports from city staff, the FinGov committee unanimously approved sending a rescission of $5.8 million in capital costs and $36.4 million in budget reallocations to the full city council.
In many ways, the process has mirrored the way the city creates its annual budget, but done so on an emergency timeline.
“We really took a similar approach to what we do every year as part of the budget as we worked with agencies as we evaluated the reductions that they were proposing,” Stephanie Adams told the committee. “We worked with agencies and really talked to them about their core services and mission and tried to mitigate any reductions we thought would have a significant impact on either of those things.”
One important aspect touted by both the mayor and the Department of Finance was their commitment to ensuring Denverites won’t notice any of the proposed cuts. Resident-facing services should not be impacted, and those that have already been impacted will be back to normal operation by Summer, they assured committee members.
But cuts are still being made, and several projects — like the Alameda Avenue underpass — are being delayed. The underpass concerned District 7 Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez who said the current underpass is in “terrible condition.” But the $2 million found by Department of Finance comes from a city match for a federal grant that was not received, Adams said. The project will also still be funded through money from the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
Other concerns revolved around the longevity of the so-called “newcomers” program and how it will be funded next year. Some of this is still up in the air, Adams said, since some money for this year’s project was found from one-time sources. But actions this year may be applied to 2025, such as the airport paying for a public safety recruit class and using the 911 trust fund to pay 911 operators.
“It just depends on the funding source,” Adams said. “If it’s a one-time source that we had the unique opportunity to use in 2024 or if there are some additional things we’ve learned and continue to have as part of 2025.”
The budget process for 2025 is slated to begin in less than two weeks, with initial planning discussions beginning on April 29. The formal process will begin in earnest in late summer and early fall, with a final budget typically approved in November.