City Council approves Denver’s $4.4 billion 2025 budget

The Denver City Council unanimously — and quietly — approved a $4.4 billion budget for the city next year on Tuesday evening.

The finalized 2025 document calls for $1.76 billion in general fund spending, just 0.6% more than the $1.75 billion budgeted to be spent on city services this year.

That makes the 2025 budget the city’s most conservative when it comes to spending growth in any year not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2011, according to Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration. It’s belt-tightening — including limits on hiring across most departments — that is reflective of softening consumer spending in a city that draws more than half of its revenue from sales taxes.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Johnston acknowledged those economic realities while thanking the council for its support.

“The city budget is a reflection of our values and our priorities, and even in a slower economic environment, we created a budget that will build a vibrant, affordable, and safe Denver,” Johnston said in a statement.

The news release highlighted the administration’s commitment to spending $60 million on creating or preserving nearly 1,400 units of affordable housing and $58 million in economic development spending including support for local entrepreneurs and minority-owned businesses.

The release also noted that the 2025 budget is the first since 2021 that the council approved without any amendments.

That was not for lack of trying. The council spent hours last week debating — and ultimately voting down — eight different amendments to the budget.

Among those was a change that would have given $2.5 million to the Denver Basic Income Project to continue its pilot program monitoring the impact of providing no-strings-attached cash to people who are or have been homeless.

Johnston gave $2 million to the project in the 2024 budget after the council requested he do so but he rejected the council’s efforts to secure more funding this year. Earlier this fall, Johnston said that in a tight budget year, the city needs to focus its resources on housing strategies that have a high “return on investment” and that early research about the Denver Basic Income Project’s impact on housing was not conclusive enough for him to support it.

Councilman Kevin Flynn last week voted against the amendment that could have overruled the mayor. He referred to data pulled from surveys from project participants 10 months into receiving payments that showed that even people in the control group — receiving just $50 a month instead of the $500 or $1,000 a month the other distinct groups in the study were receiving — were housed at a 43% rate. That’s roughly the same as the 45% rate of all survey respondents regardless of which group they were in. That information demonstrated to Flynn that the payments were not the key factor in determining participants’ housing outcomes.

“I don’t think we should be throwing more taxpayer dollars at this until it shows that the money is what made the difference,” he said before voting against the $2.5 million amendment.

It ultimately failed on a tied 6-6 vote.

Johnston did move in the council’s direction on several budget requests outside the amendment process. That included adding $3 million to the city’s Temporary Rent and Utility Assistance program, or TRUA, next year for a total of $23 million. During the budget amendment process in 2023, the council put pressure on the administration, which resulted in the money for TRUA rising from Johnston’s original proposal of $12.6 million to $29.1 million this year.

In Tuesday’s news release, administration officials touted that the 2025 budget also includes $2 million to support legal help for people facing evictions.