During a nearly seven-hour meeting, Denver City Council passed 10 amendments to Mayor Mike Johnston’s 2026 budget, totaling about $8 million in changes — with even more proposed changes left on the cutting room floor.
One of the biggest changes was to add $2.8 million to the budget of Clerk and Recorder Paul López, who has been embroiled in a bitter public debate with the mayor over his budget.
The council also voted to move some funding from the police and public safety budgets to other safety and mental health programs.
Johnston’s proposed 2026 budget was “cut to the bone” by Mayor Johnston, thanks to a projected $200 million shortfall next year. That’s led to an intense fight over limited resources between the mayor’s office, independent elected officials and community members. Caught in the middle are Denver’s 13 city council members, who have been able to amend Johnston’s budget, but not outright reject it.
“This is one of the only times that we matter,” said at-large councilmember Sarah Parady. “Voting through the mayor's budget, we may as well not be here.”
Council members voted on 19 amendments to Johnston’s budget on Monday. Another eight were introduced but eventually withdrawn without a vote.
Many of the amendments addressed concerns they heard from community members at last week’s public hearing, where people spoke up in support of funding a family homeless shelter, safer roads and more.
The elections budget was expanded on a unanimous vote.
Johnston’s budget cut funding for the city’s Elections Division by about 6 percent, or about $515,000, compared to the prior year.
Clerk and Recorder Paul López argued he would need another $4.5 million to deal with the rising costs of dealing with elections. He said voting centers and ballot boxes would have to close without more money. López is independently elected.
But the mayor’s office argued that the budget would still be comparable to 2022, the last midterm election.
The council met López halfway, unanimously passing an amendment to transfer $2.7 million of unassigned funding to López’s office. Since it passed with a supermajority, there is little chance the mayor can reverse that decision.
The council also passed an amendment to increase funding to the City Auditor’s Office, providing $500,000 in contingency funds. Council members called it an unprecedented but necessary decision. It also passed unanimously.
“I also just want to acknowledge that there's a lot of unprecedented things going on this year with the budget and I think it is incredibly important that our independent agencies receive the respect that they deserve as independently elected officials in the City and County of Denver,” said Councilmember Amanda Sawyer.
Council President Amanda Sandoval said being in the middle of the fight between the mayor’s office and the two independent agencies gave her a sense of “impending doom.” She called for a better process to settle budgetary disputes.
“I never want to have council or independent agencies be put in this position again,” she said. “So please, can we just work together in a different way? We have to find a new process.”
Both offices requested more during the budget process, but Johnston’s office didn’t match their demands.
Attempts to reallocate police funding largely failed.
Several amendments proposed moving money from the Denver Police Department or the Department of Public Safety budgets to other causes.
Only two of those proposals passed.
The first amendment, which was proposed by Councilmember Shontel Lewis, would take $286,000 from the police department’s services and supplies budget and reallocate it to the Denver Sheriff Department’s Mental Health and Programs Division. It passed on a slim 7-6 margin, which Johnston could reverse.
“This amendment proposes to use funding from the Denver Police Department Services and Supplies to add a crisis response team at the Denver jail to help those experiencing mental or behavioral health crises,” a description stated.
The second, passed with a 10-3 supermajority, would transfer $500,000 from the police and public safety budgets, sending it instead to the Support Team Assistance Response program, which sends mental health professionals to calls where someone is suffering from mental health distress or substance use disorders.
Several of the amendments took aim at the police recruiting budget or DPD’s helicopter lease. Some members argued the recruiting budget was overinflated.
“In 2024, the actual cost for Denver to train and hire 167 recruit officers was $2.8 million. Those are the actuals that were spent,” said at-large Councilmember Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez. “In the 2026 proposed budget, there is an ask of $9.4 million to recruit 168 officers.”
Many of the proposed cuts to the police budget failed narrowly, including one that would have moved $1.6 million to help recruit sheriff employees for the understaffed jail. Another would have moved $5.6 million to open a family homeless shelter, but that one failed by a vote of 5-8.
Other amendments focused on kids' safety and homelessness solutions.
While proposals to reallocate police funding into the Department of Housing Stability failed, the idea of finding alternative funding solutions to the housing department’s homelessness programs was still popular among council members.
That led to councilmembers Sarah Parady and Shontel Lewis introducing a last-minute amendment that once again utilized contingency funding to fund the Denver Day Works program, which provides unhoused people with low- to no-barrier work experience. That passed unanimously.
The council also unanimously moved to spend $1.6 million of capital contingency funds on the Safe Routes for School program, which aims to create safe roads and sidewalks to schools.
Other unanimous decisions included an amendment to provide $3 million for a child safety grant program within the Office of Neighborhood Safety, restoring funding to the Out Of School Time program, and cutting about $80,000 from council’s personnel and supplies budget and reallocating it to STAR.
What’s next for the budget?
The mayor has until noon on Friday, Nov. 7, to accept or veto amendments. A spokesperson said his office was reviewing the amendments and did not have an immediate comment.
On Nov. 10, the council may override any vetoes with a supermajority of nine votes.
