The city and county of Denver plans on hiring freezes and furloughs as it projects $250 million in revenue shortfalls over the next couple years.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, laid some of the blame on the Trump administration for the municipality's budget woes in a fiscal update given on Thursday.
“The economic downturn and volatility brought on by President Trump is a major challenge facing Denver,” Johnston said in a written statement. “This uncertainty, coupled with declining revenues and significant growth in the cost of city government over the past decade, require us to immediately address the city’s structural budget deficit while protecting essential services and positioning Denver for economic growth in 2026 and beyond.”
The city projects a $50 million revenue gap for the remainder of this year and a $200 million shortfall in 2026.
Well, there might be another explanation; two of them, in fact, and they’re related:
Spending:
Johnston explained the growth of city government is “unsustainable,” nearly doubling in size over the last 12 years while costs have increased 83% and revenue has grown by 75%, leaving an 8% difference.
Inviting in the migrants:
Denver's sanctuary city status has resulted in significant costs to taxpayers. Estimates for the City of Denver's spending on migrant response goods and services have ranged from $70 million to $90 million through 2024. This includes spending on housing, medical care, and other services for migrants. Additionally, area schools and hospitals have incurred costs for resources, instruction, and care, with the latter estimated to be around $228 million, according to the Common Sense Institute.
Direct City Costs:
The City of Denver has estimated spending on migrant response to be around $70 million, with a projected $90 million through 2024.
Funding Sources:
The city has utilized federal funding, city grant programs, and cuts to city budget items to cover these costs.
Impact on Public Safety Budgets:
To fund the response, Denver City Council faced budget cuts, including reductions in public safety agencies like the Denver Police Department and Fire Department,
Area School and Hospital Costs:
Schools and hospitals have incurred significant costs for resources, instruction, and care, with the latter estimated at $228 million,
Migrant Population:
The city has counted 45,000 total arrivals from December 1, 2022, to date, with half estimated to have remained in the Denver metro area.
NY Post, December 1, 2024: Sanctuary city Denver has spent almost $8,000 for each of the 45,000 migrants that have come to the city — and now the mayor says he’ll risk jail to stop them being deported
The bill so far for Denver’s sanctuary city policies: $356 million in taxpayer dollars — about $7,900 per migrant, a new study estimates — and the city’s mayor said he would rather go to jail than let any of them be deported.
The Mile-High City has shelled out a full 8% of its 2025 budget caring for the roughly 45,000 migrants who have arrived since 2022, according to an updated report by the Common Sense Institute (CSI).
In addition to funding hotels, transportation and childcare, Denver has dropped $49 million for migrant healthcare and a staggering $256 million into education for more than 16,000 migrant children enrolled in local schools.
As the city bleeds cash, doctors have said hospitals are at a breaking point and cops are struggling to contain a gang crime wave, yet Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston told 9News he would rather face jail than cooperate with Donald Trump’s mass-deportation plan.
Of course, it’s not just Denver, the entire state of Colorado is suffering under Trump — Trump, and “bad luck”
Coloradoan Stephen Green, PJ Media:
Colorado's economic report card is in, and my beloved home state — formerly a solid A and B student — just flunked every subject.
Once upon a time, Colorado was a devilishly weird purple state — home to moderate-to-conservative Republicans like Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Tom Tancredo, idiosyncratic Democrats like Gary Hart and Richard Lamm, and (outside the Denver-Boulder Axis) a healthy libertarian streak.
It was such a swirl that one of those famous Republicans, Campbell, was originally a Democrat.
That all began to change around 2008 when my purple state went deep blue for Barack Obama. By 2018, the hope'n'change was locked in. The last Republican to win statewide office was in 2016, when Heidi Ganahl was elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents. The last Republican to win a Senate seat was Cory Gardner in 2014, and he served but a single term.
Colorado's Democrats are no longer hard to pin down. The party is increasingly dominated by the hard left, and the party has dominated the general assembly going back to 2018. Today, Dems hold both chambers by a two-to-one margin. Whatever they want, they get.
How's that workin' out for us?
Before we went Full Indigo, Colorado was pretty well run. This is my state — or was, using figures from before 2018:
Third in the nation for personal income growth.
A regulatory burden in the lower half of all states.
Tied for second-lowest unemployment in 2017 at 2.7% — and that wasn’t unusual.
Job growth of 2.4% in 2017 — typical for a state that was regularly in the top ten.
A top-10 destination for people moving in from other states.
Colorado wasn't perfect, but we punched above our weight economically and in sheer beauty. Just 11 years old, I fell in love with Colorado's beauty at first sight. I didn't know anything about economics, but I knew then I'd make this place my home — which I did at 25, three decades ago.
And this is my state on Democrats, all taken from the 2024 report card just published by the Denver Gazette:
39th in the nation for personal income growth.
Sixth worst regulatory burden in the nation.
In March, we had the second-highest unemployment rate (not an atypical month).
Job-growth rate of 0.17% (March 2024-March 2025), 43rd in the nation.
A bottom-10 destination for people moving in from other states.
One last note, directly from the Gazette: "Beginning with Senate Bill-181 (2019), Colorado has obstructed energy production — a major Colorado export — at an expense of the state’s economy and high-wage blue-collar jobs." The paper added, "In all, multiple new regulations since 2018 have Colorado producing less oil and gas in 2025 than in 2019, as the country’s production has increased."
And across nearly every other metric — schools, housing, homelessness, crime, addiction, even abortion rates — the numbers all go the wrong way.
For 45 years, I always thought I'd die in Colorado. Now, like so many others, I'm dying to get out.
Thanks, Dems.
