It's time for this biweekly meeting of the Finance and Business Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the Finance and Business Committee starting now.

And it's the final day of September when uh Tuesday, September 30.

You've reached the Finance and Business Committee of Denver City Council.

My name is Paul Cashman.

I serve as uh the vice chair of this committee.

I have the honor of filling in today for uh chairperson Sorana Gonzalez Guterres, one of our at-large representatives.

I also have the pleasure of representing District 6.

We have some folks arriving a little bit late.

We have some folks online right now, and I'm gonna go online first, see if uh council members Watson or Lewis might be there.

Hi, good morning, Councilwoman Lewis District 8.

Thank you for being here.

Okay, we'll wait along the way and see if others join us, and I will complete introductions by going to my partner to the right.

Uh good morning, everyone.

Uh, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Great.

Well, our agenda today is a combination.

We have a couple of action items uh regarding the purchase of some properties on Tremont Place downtown.

Uh we're going to start off with uh welcoming our uh our auditor uh Tim O'Brien and his team uh to talk to us about the uh 2026 budget for Denver labor.

So if you'd like to uh have a seat and uh introduce uh the the assembled throng and the floor is yours.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, I'm Tim O'Brien, I'm the Denver Auditor.

To my right is Cindy Labrano.

She's my uh business manager.

To my left is Matt Fritzmauer, he's the executive director of Denver Labor.

Valerie Walling, deputy auditors in the audience, as well as Mike Brandon is my communications director.

So I'm gonna ask Cindy to walk through the presentation that we have, and then we'll be happy to answer any and all questions that the uh committee may have.

Before you get started, we'd like to welcome Council President.

I'd like to introduce.

Oh, Councilwoman Tanville, Northwest Denver District Right.

Johnson Delver Labor.

Thank you.

Good morning, thank you for having us here as Auditor O'Brien mentioned.

I'm Cindy Labrano, the business manager for the auditor's office.

Um, I think you have a presentation of our uh slide deck.

Uh the vision of our office is to deliver value and impact for Denver, and we follow the highest professional standards.

The mission of our office is to deliver independent, transparent, and professional oversight to safeguard and improve the public's investment in the city and county of Denver.

Our work is performed on behalf of everyone who cares about the city, including its residents, workers, and decision makers.

Next slide.

Uh, we have a brief agenda today.

We're gonna talk a little bit about the duties and requirements of the auditor's office, our uh city charter, our uh local and federal labor law compliance, uh the budget allocation that the mayor suggests, and uh Matt is gonna talk about a little bit about the Denver Labor budget and the need for a litigator.

Our next slide goes into detail a little bit.

Of the auditor's office, um our office is driven by city charter article five, which establishes independence of the auditor's office and authority and duties while conducting audits of the city and county of Denver.

Um I'll pause here a little bit and kind of jump back and forth a little bit, but I just want to mention that uh the importance of our work is to keep the city agencies functioning at the highest standards.

And um, our next slide, our next bullet there is the enforcement of city wage ordinance, which includes the prevailing wage, civil wage, and minimum wage ordinances within the city, and then federal enforcement, which is the oversight of the Davis Bacon Act, on behalf of contractors and subcontractors on federally federally funded construction projects, such as the airport.

The importance of this work obviously is based on serving the citizens who work in the city of Denver who experience wage theft reduced benefits or misclassification of their rates.

Next slide.

We're here to request that our budget remain flat.

Last year we were given a 16,196, 607 million dollar budget in 2025.

And the mayor has suggested a decrease of 3% of our budget for the coming year.

This really clashes with our independence, steps on our toes regarding the management of our budget dollars.

And we just want to challenge that suggestion of a budget cut of the 3%, which roughly comes to about $500,000, just over $500,000.

Our next point is that, you know, the mayor and the finance department really don't have any oversight to dictate who we can or cannot hire.

Again, based on the city charter, we need to be able to hire based on our discretion, based on our workload.

We're currently down several staff, and it really impedes the ability to continue work throughout the year.

We have an aggressive audit schedule as we do every year for 2026.

And with the inability to hire at our discretion, this really doesn't allow us to complete our scheduled audits.

But really are doing the work that the office is meant to do based on their charter, based on our independence.

We can go to the next slide.