Denver Mayor Mike Johnston unveiled his budget proposal for 2026 on Monday, which includes a combined $195 million in savings from the August job cuts and departmental reductions.

Denver

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has unveiled a proposed budget for 2026 designed to close a $200 million shortfall. The plan involves $118 million in personnel savings through staff reductions, $77 million in service and supply adjustments, and $5.7 million in new revenue initiatives such as increased photo radar enforcement. Spending on homelessness and migrant response is set to decrease by $8 million compared to the previous year, partly due to the closure of hotel shelters and a transition to permanent housing for affected individuals.

Core city services such as parks, public safety, and waste management are not slated for cuts. However, the city clerk and recorder's office has criticized proposed reductions, warning of potential impacts on election operations. The mayor emphasized that the budget assumes no growth and no further layoffs, but final approval rests with the city council.

Denver mayor unveils 2026 budget proposal amid $200 million shortfall

We're getting our first look at Denver's proposed city budget for next year and this comes after layoffs and hiring freezes were put in place in an effort to balance a major shortfall. Denver 7th Danielle Kreuter was at the mayor's presentation today and asked questions about some of the additional cuts. She joins us now in studio. Danielle this budget has a lot to it. Yeah Mike and Jessica it's about 600 pages long and today we got a closer look at what was cut and what was not and what sort of wiggle room the mayor's office believes there is for any more changes. Denver 7 has closely been tracking efforts to balance the city of Denver's budget. After cuts layoffs and furloughs, Mayor Mike Johnston revealed his proposed 2026 budget. We have worked to now close a 200 million dollar budget gap across the city and doing that all while protecting core city services. So let's break it down. There was 118 million dollars in personnel savings through staff reductions, 77 million dollars saved in services and supply adjustments and 5.7 million dollars in new revenue ideas including adding more photo radar enforcement through the police department. People ask okay well is the budget crisis in part a function of increased spending on migrants and homelessness. The mayor pointed to this graph to answer that question. On the far left is how much was budgeted for homelessness and migrant response in 2023 nearly $74 million. On the right is how much will be budgeted for next year, 66 million. We will next year in this budget spend $8 million less on migrants and homelessness combined than we spent the year before I became mayor in 2023. Part of that reduction comes from cuts. Denver's Department of Housing is set to make including closing down hotels that have been run as city shelters. As you plan to eliminate all of the least hotel shelters, how many people are currently living there and what is the plan for them once those were closed? Thank you. Our plan is to transition all those folks out of those shelters into permanent housing. Um none of those folks will return to the street. They'll all go into permanent housing. We did that this year when we closed the Radisson and we successfully transitioned all those folks into permanent housing. So our focus will be to help them exit in the first quarter of 2026. Uh that's about 130 people services that will not be cut include parks and rec public facing services like permitting and licensing counters, trash recycling and composting police officers, cold weather shelters and city employee health and retirement benefits. The mayor also said this budget plans for exactly 0% growth next year. So he doesn't see any other layoffs or furloughs being necessary. The one caveat to that he says is if some of these cuts get shifted and departments that have already been trimmed are asked to cut even more in the end, it will be up to city council to approve this budget or not. Their budget hearings start a week from today. Well, some good news in terms of the services that won't be cut. But Danielle, we're already hearing from some department heads who are pretty upset about the mayor's proposed budget. Yeah, Micah, the city clerk and recorder's office already planning their own news conference to respond to this criticizing proposed cuts to their department during what will be an election year. Clerk paul Lopez released this statement today, saying in part quote, this proposal will decimate election operations in Denver by forcing the closure of polling centers and ballot drop boxes in every part of the city, jeopardizing voter turnout in what is expected to be a high profile midterm election cycle. The mayor was asked about these specific budget cuts today. Take a listen. Other departments, independents and electeds worked collaboratively with us to try to reach a solution. They did not and insisted on demanding increases which we couldn't meet in this budget. And so in this budget, you'll see a 5% reduction to them across the board that they can determine how they want to it. According to the budget, the majority of those cuts to the clerk and recorder's office would come from cutting $734,000 across all of their divisions, plus eliminating one vacant position. Of course, we will be checking in with the clerk and recorder's office tomorrow and we'll be sure to keep you updated. It'll be interesting to see what city council has to say next week. Danielle, thank you for that reporting.

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