The governance and intergovernmental relations committee of Denver City Council.

Thanks for joining us for the discussion.

The governance and intergovernmental relations committee starts now.

Everyone, it is Tuesday, November 18.

This is the uh governance committee of Denver City Council.

I'm Amanda Sawyer.

I have the honor of representing the residents of District 5 and chairing this committee.

Uh, we've got an action item and then a uh council conversation happening today.

So before we get started with those, we are going to do a round of introductions, and I'm gonna start to my left.

Thank you.

Amanda Sanderbone, right West Denver District 1.

Uh, good morning, Darren Watson, fine, district nine.

Good morning, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Uh good morning, Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

Good morning, Serena Konsalski.

When are you council members at large?

Carvin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Stacy Gilmore, District 11.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Well, we are gonna start um with 2518, 91 and 92 today, uh, which are our annual appropriations.

Um, so I'm gonna turn it over to the Department of Finance.

Take it away, Justin.

Introduce yourselves, please.

Thank you, uh, Chair Sawyer, Vice Chair Cashman, members of city council.

My name is Justin Sykes.

I have the privilege of serving as the director of the city's budget and management office, and we are grateful to be here this morning at the governance committee to present on the year-end supplemental appropriation requests.

This is something that around this time of year we typically do uh to ensure that agencies are able to stay within budget.

The specific council actions that we are presenting on, uh, there are two.

The first is to rescind about $13.9 million dollars from the general fund contingency budget, reappropriate that amount into six different other appropriations, and then also to supplementally appropriate two general government SRFs adding budget to those funds.

There's a section second action item to supplementally appropriate five million dollars for the Denver Arts and Venues Special Revenue Fund.

To start, I want to begin with the city's financial outlook.

In the current year 2025, we are tracking about 60 million dollars less in revenues than we had predicted a year ago.

Much of that is due to sales and use taxes being lower than we had projected, due to the tariffs and economic uncertainty that we've seen over the last nearly year, and to offset that projected lower amount of revenues uh than the amount we built our 2025 budget based on.

There are three main strategies for the current year.

There are the furloughs and the hiring freeze, which were announced back in May.

Additionally, that third strategy would be to preserve some of our general fund contingency budget in the 2026 budget book for 2025.

We reference a target savings amount of 35 million dollars.

Given where we are at so far this year, I believe we are on target to meet that $35 million savings amount from these three strategies.

Year to date in the general fund, we've saved about six and a half million dollars from furloughs.

The target there is 10 million, and for the citywide furlough next week, Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, we will save approximately two million dollars more.

The second strategy is the hiring freeze, for which we've saved a little under six million dollars year to date, even though that hiring freeze has now been lifted following the approval of the 2026 budget.

Uh, it's still gonna take some time to actually hire people into those positions that are now moving forward.

And so we believe we will save another million dollars or so uh between now and the end of the year uh or early next year, when many of those positions will begin to be filled.

Finally, if the supplemental appropriation request out of the general fund were to be approved, we would still have a little over 20 million dollars available in contingency combined.

Those three amounts add up to uh just under 38 million dollars, so above that $35 million dollar savings target that we had provided in the 2026 budget book for the current year.

Just as a quick reminder, the purpose of general fund contingency uh is to meet unmet uh needs to cover unexpected events.

It's something that by charter is required to be set each budget at 2% of estimated general fund expenditures for the 2025 budget.

There is $34,551,000 in general fund contingency, and we have not tapped into general fund contingency at all yet this year.

If the supplemental appropriation request were to be approved, we would use about 13.9 million of that uh 34.55 million, which would leave about 20.6 million dollars remaining.

This is a historical look back at how much we have spent out of general fund contingency going back to 2018.

You can see that in 2024 last year, we spent all but about a million dollars from general fund contingency, and a big reason for that was early on in the year last year.

We went to supplemental for 10 million dollars for the newcomer response, and then in September went to supplemental for $8 million to support the temporary rental and utility assistance program for TRUAM.

In 2023, we spent essentially all of contingency through several rounds of supplementals, and that year as well, use contingency to support the newcomer response.

Here is a listing of those six proposed general fund supplemental appropriations for 2025.

You can see the agency, a description of the reason for that proposed supplemental appropriation, and then the proposed dollar amount.

Uh is the highest, and so I'm grateful to have Chief Thomas and the Department of Safety's Chief Financial Officer, Shine Cummings here at the table as well to speak to that.

Uh and with that, I will turn it over to Chine to share more about the proposed police department supplement.

Thank you, Justin, and good morning, everyone.

Um Shinee Cummings Chief Financial Officer for Department of Public Safety.

Um, on this slide, you will uh see that our supplemental request is 11 million dollars, which is approximately 4% of our appropriated budget.

Um, we did unfortunately go over budget.

Our two primary areas uh where we have um went over budget is in the personnel category under overtime, and also a separation payouts.

So we were budgeted at $8 million approximately for overtime, and we are looking at about a $7 million to $7.5 million contingency of that $11 million.

Um, also we were budgeted at $1.8 million for uh separation leave payouts.

This is definitely an area where it's hard to predict who will separate and leave the department on an annual basis.

So our actual expenditures as of today are about $4.8 billion.

We do know we still have a couple of officers who have not received payouts at this time, so we're projecting at the end of the year to be closer to $5.3 million, which takes us about $3.5 million over budget.

Uh, in the areas of overtime, primarily our main uh contributing factors are large event staffing.

Um, when we talk about large event staffing, that would be uh like our um protest activity and also uh things that like dignitary visits and things of that nature.

When we talk about uh downtown and other needs, that is also related to uh encampments and our encampment, um, sorry, encampment decommission sites, as well as uh DDA downtown Loto Outcrowd events, which Chief Thomas will talk about on the next slide.

When we talk about continuation of duty, that is a combination of um officers who have been asked to stay on uh past their shifts, and that could be for a combination of reasons, it could be um for high profile um investigations or events, it could also there are the large event um activities are contributing factor to that, as well as um any other um staffing shortages that we may have in the department.

Then I'll turn it over to Chief Thomas to talk about some of the operational drivers of overtime.

Thank you, Shanae uh Ron Thomas to our place, Chief.

And so, uh, as the slide shows, um, we have had to date, well, at least through October 31st, 38 major demonstrations to include uh no kings.

I think there were actually two or three of those that had uh thousands of folks that we had to manage.

Um also uh to date we've had 11 uh officer involved shooting incidents, which is another driver of calling people in or holding people over uh to manage those scenes and to manage those investigations.

Also, uh continuation of duties, you can see is um a huge driver, and this is often situations where officers are either held over because of you know being assigned a late call or having to do something critical as it relates to a case that they've been assigned or um being held over because of a lack of staffing because other personnel have been drawn away to uh manage an event such as uh such as uh a large demonstration.

Um also um uh the expansion of our downtown deployments, which I think many of you are aware of uh what occurred in January of this year, um, uh caused uh a need for us to respond to that.

Uh, and so we did respond to that uh before the DDA funding was uh approved.

Um, and then again, uh talking about the the expansion of call outs and callbacks, these are all situations in which we are contractually obligated uh to pay officers uh over time for the time that they earn.

So for uh the other supplementals, I will very briefly speak to the proposed liabilities and claims supplemental appropriation.

Ashley Kelleher from the civil litigation section of the city attorney's office will be here.

Uh she is double booked with another urgent meeting, but we'll be available for any questions you all may have.

The proposal is to pull 1.2 million dollars out of general fund contingency, transfer that amount to the liabilities and claims fund, which right now has a balance of approximately $56,000.

There would be a $2 million transfer in 2026.

Uh but just given where the city attorney's office is at with various settlements and payouts, uh, want to be able to enable them to move forward with some of those items this year.

Uh, and Ashley, when she joins us, we'll be able to speak further to that.

There is another proposed supplemental appropriation for the city's unemployment compensation program.

This is funding that is used to reimburse the state of Colorado for actual unemployment claims made by former general fund city employees.

The base amount for 2025 is 800,000, and we are proposing to add 1 million dollars to that amount, and that would bring us up to what we believe is the total maximum amount we might need to pay out.

Unemployment compensation is notoriously hard to project.

We don't know necessarily whether someone will file, when they will file, or if they file, how long they will be receiving unemployment before finding another job.

Year to date, we have paid out about five hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars of total unemployment claims.

That amount, though, is only through the end of the third quarter of this year.

We will not receive the final bill for the fourth quarter of 2025 from the state until early next year, at which point it would be too late to seek a supplemental appropriation from city council.

Do want to note on this proposed supplemental that there are savings in agencies' budgets from those positions that were laid off not being filled for the last quarter of the year, it's just that we don't pay unemployment out of agencies' budgets.

We pay unemployment out of the standalone appropriation that the Department of Finance in partnership with the Office of Human Resources manages.

Overall, these account for a really small percentage of the overall supplemental amount that we are seeking.

They include for the district attorney's office for personnel costs and separation payouts.

Grateful that Lisa Willis, the Chief of Staff for the DA's office, and Matt Kirsch, the first deputy district attorney are here today for any questions about that.

Additionally, there is a proposed 150,000 supplemental appropriation for the office of the municipal public defender.

And grateful to have Chief Municipal Public Defender Colette Vett here to speak to any detailed questions about that.

That's being driven by costs associated with alternative defense counsel.

So when our office of the municipal public defender is conflicted out of representing someone, they need to pay to have another entity do that work.

And those costs are challenging to project and have escalated here in the last few months of the year.

Finally, a small supplemental appropriation, $35,000 for City Council employee separation paths.

First would be that five million dollars of additional budget for Denver Arts and Venues, that increase is all backed by revenues that Denver Arts and Venues generates.

Additionally, there are uh proposed supplemental amounts for the internal billings fund to cover dens costs associated with police and fire.

This is the proposed legislative schedule.

We are at the governance committee today, November 18th.

If approved, this would move forward to mayor council next week Tuesday, and then be on first and second reading on December 1st and December 8th.

With that, be glad to field any questions or turn it over to any of my colleagues here today with questions.

All right, we've got a few council members in the queue, and we're gonna start with Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um Justin, on um looking at the historical general fund contingency spending on slide seven.

You gave a little bit of detail as far as what um those funds went towards, but it didn't necessarily add up to that full 33 million.

So in 20 in 2024, it was 33 million in 2023, it was 32.6 million, notably over since 2018, it looks like the largest amount that we've spent out of contingency.

And I'm just want to know what else.

You said 8 million for true, 10 million for um newcomer response.

That's 18 million.

So what was their remaining 15 million?

Um great question.

So I um I we can pull that, we will pull those ordinances, we can tick and tie out all of those.

And why only um point out those two without if you're gonna talk about it, then talk about all the things that are being that were contributed to that amount.

So I think the thinking in highlighting those two amounts is those were somewhat anomalous.

So typically what we're doing is like what we're doing here today, bringing forward year-end supplemental appropriation requests when agencies are tracking to go over budget.

And so I think in the case of the uh newcomer amount, uh, the case of the TRUA, those were ones that we did earlier on in the year, and so I think are a part of the reason why we spent as much as we did.

Okay.

Um, and then going back to the downtown.

Sorry, the the so if we go to that, I guess the pie chart that's there, um, where we have the overtown overtime for downtown and other needs.

This is slide nine, um, and then uh just kind of those breakdowns.

I guess I would like to know a little bit more about what are the other needs, and there was a brief I think description on um encampments and things like that.

It would be helpful to know more detail of what are the other needs that are um contributing to this amount.

Absolutely.

I don't know if there's anything.

So I can't um speak to that.

So when we uh said other needs, they're all smaller amounts, but they were the things that um Chief Thomas has spoken to in slide 10, those contractual agreements that we have for um staffing shortages, and also when we do holdovers for high-profile um incidents, and when we also have um individuals because contractually, like holiday pay and things like that, that they have to stay over for some time.

So we can get breakdown of that information.

The problem is the amounts were so small that it just made more sense just to include it in one bucket because it might have been like 200,000 in one area, 300,000 in another area, but they all made up to that total.

Okay.

And it was mentioned that the funding through the DDDA for the um enhanced downtown patrol.

Um the I don't know if that included the horse patrol as well, but what is why hasn't that what that was it back in April?

I think where that was you had discussed that and were under the understanding that that would be funded through, but now you're saying it's not being funded by the DDDA as of yet, or what tell me the the sequence of it is.

Um it is so I think year-to-day DPD is tracking around a million dollars of costs that will be shifted over to the downtown Denver Development Authority Special Revenue Fund, and that amount is accounted for in this proposed supplemental amount.

So factoring in the fact that those costs would be shifted over to that alternative funding source, okay.

So that is factored in, and so that is not being captured in this request for the 11 million.

That is correct, but this is looking at the areas where uh we're projecting to go over budget, and and that amount has already been allocated to the DDDA.

And what is the amount that has been paid out in liability claims that's come out of DPD?

I don't have that number, but we can certainly um make sure to get that before.

She's like, oh no.

Ashley, do you have that information of the amount year to date that has been paid out specifically for DPD and liability claims?

Ashley Killer, our city attorney's office, I don't have that exact amount for DPDs specifically, no, but I could get it for you.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I guess my last question um is seeing over the I guess wanting to looking at 2020 and even 2021 with COVID and the number of protests that lasted days, and they were maybe not as large as the No Kings or um, but they were um they were different, right?

Those protests were very different than I think some of the things we've been seeing now.

And I'm just curious how much what was a supplemental request for those since we had multiple unexpected um protests and things happening like that.

So a couple answers there.

Number one, um, we were able to um cover our overtime spend with vacancy savings that we just don't have uh currently.

Uh secondly, I think that there have been two um CBA agreements that have that have gone through since then, and so our overtime spend is just incrementally uh greater because of the higher cost of of all of those overtime shifts.

I would still like to know what the supplemental requests were if you if that's possible to get for that time.

Just kind of looking at what is the comparison if we're talking about this backfilling the need of protests and knowing back during that time there were a large number of protests.

Right.

But I mean, I think again, we were able, I mean we we went beyond our overtime allotment then too.

We were just able to cover that with our vacancy savings.

And so there was no vacancy savings.

So as part of the 2025 budget reductions, uh, that was an area where we reduced in DPD.

So we we've shrunk down the DPD budget, and so there's just not as much capacity in the lines like overtime or separation payouts then to absorb those overages.

All right, that's it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Flynn.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chief, excuse me.

How do how do you allocate staff time to protests that result in the in the uh overtime?

So great question.

So as you know, uh a number of these are relatively unplanned, and when I say that, we may know about them a few days in advance, and so we pay attention to open source, and often we are able to um get a sense either from the open source or from the uh pro from the demonstration organizers that were able to connect with the size and magnitude of these demonstrations, and then we determine the amount of staff that are going to be necessary for that.

And so there are some that we are going to be able to manage with um uncommitted resources, so like our SWAT team and other resources were able to, you know, district impact teams were able to dedicate uh to those demonstrations.

There are others, either because of their size uh and magnitude or because of the dates in which they're scheduled, and some of those resources are not available.

Now we have to start pulling from resources that are generally assigned uh to the police districts.

So we get those numbers from our special events uh commander and our strategic um investigations commander.

We that's how we get the the sense of the resources that are gonna be necessary, uh, and then we make those assignments, and then there are often occasions where because of the understanding of the of the size and magnitude, we know that we're gonna need to cancel days off or change people's schedule shift hours, all of which come with a contractual obligation to pay for overtime.

Right.

I hear aboutten from district four that officers are being pulled downtown, for example.

Is there a standard ratio that ICO?

So you say you have a number of we know how many people might be there.

Um that translates to X.

Yeah, fair.

I'm certain there is.

I don't I couldn't give you that ratio.

I'd have to probably have the commander of our special operations who manages uh each of one of each one of these events, but um certainly there is a number of officers we feel comfortable with, depending on the size and again the magnitude of uh the demonstration.

The other thing that we try to do as often as possible, particularly if we know that it's got something that's gonna be of significant size, is um uh enlist the assistance of our uh law enforcement partners around the metro area, uh which I think helps us limit the amount of overtime uh and cancel days off that we're able to do.

Um you know ICP uh certainly was something that we knew was going to bring 18,000 people to our city for uh a period of time, and so um we waited to identify the exact number of officers that we were going to be able to rely on from other jurisdictions before determining that we're still gonna need to cancel days off, we're still gonna need to put out officers on 12-hour ships.

Does the nature of the the of a protest or demonstration factor into this?

For example, if, and I think this is coming up, and we got an email recently, a pro-life or anti-abortion demonstration on the lawn of the capital sometimes might bring counter protests or vice versa.

Correct.

Uh does that drive, in other words, does this a variable ratio?

It is, and so certainly we want to pay attention to the number of uh demonstrators that we anticipate, but we also um factor in uh are they going to march?

Uh are there likely to be counter protesters that will also have to go street as your example.

Uh, correct.

Um, you know, is there a potential that they could try to access the highway?

And so those are all factors that we um that we factor in in order to determine how many officers were safe on employee.

I'm wondering if you've ever had a situation, excuse me, where you felt that we overallocated the number of losses we could be needed.

I don't know, well, so there have been um instances in which we had more officers than it turned out we needed.

Um, and so I think that uh whether we didn't get the number of uh protesters that were anticipated or that were communicated to us by the organizer, um, you know, I think that that uh it would be far better, uh, as far as I'm concerned to over allocate rather than underallocate because I think that um there are greater challenges if you have uh an underallocation of personnel.

Thank you.

Uh last question, Justin, on uh arts and venues.

Uh nearly five million dollars.

Um, because they have greater revenue, but they have greater staffing needs that we have to meet.

Do we also have to uh change the revenue allocation or just the appropriation?

So we would just have to change the expenditure appropriation.

Revenue is not something that is appropriate in the same way that expenditures are.

But the estimate of revenue, do we don't have to adjust that?

We uh we do not.

So I think it is reflected uh in the long bill.

Uh typically for the general fund.

Uh it's something that we're watching and tracking, but there's nothing uh in terms of a legal action that's needed in order to increase the estimated amount of things.

I just wondering if we had to offset it.

Great, thank you.

Councilmember Cashman.

Uh thank you, madam chair.

Chief, the recent IACP, the chief of police conference, did that put um significant additional pressure on your budget?

And is that coming out of what we're talking about, or did the conference cover those costs?

Uh the conference did cover some costs, but uh did not cover I think the $500,000 or so of overtime that that came from uh the allocations that we had that we had to make in order to cover that appropriately.

Okay, so what you're saying is 500,000 related to the conference is part of the this correct supplemental.

That's correct.

And so, you know, I think it's probably fair at this point to say that um we recognize that we were um when that we were above our um our uh budget allocation in about March.

Uh we have a regular cadence of meeting with the Department of Finance, and so we recognize in March that we were um that we were above target, and so we uh made a number of adjustments that I think uh created a pretty significant uh consistent downturn uh throughout the rest of the year, but then as ICP came that uh that went the other direction specifically because of that.

Sure.

And can you talk you mentioned making some adjustments?

Can you talk a little bit about what they were?

Yes, and so um, you know, there are things that we have historically done, like recognizing that that um uh district staffing is impacted by FMLA, by training, and so using backfill in order to fill those shifts so that those districts have the amount of staffing necessary to manage the call volume and the workload, and so um cutting off the amount of backfill uh payments that are necessary, cutting down on the overtime uh specific to um the uh the encampment resolutions, um other things that historically we have allowed for people to um to earn overtime for, whether it was for uh continuing education or uh community uh engagement events, uh turning all of those things off.

And so, you know, if the question is, what are we doing to make sure that we don't find ourselves in a similar situation for 2026?

We will continue with all of those adjustments that we've made to continue that downward trend, and there are other things that we are prepared to do uh as we as we move into 2026 to to limit our overtime spending.

Thank you.

Yes, all I've got, Anton.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair.

Great, thank you.

Council Coach Member Merrill Campbell.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Um Justin, I just have a clarifying question on slide 14.

The proposed non-general fund supplementals.

Is this part of I was trying to just track it?

Is it part of what is being requested, or is this just saying that these dollars are taken from other funds to cover what those expenses are?

This is a part of the requested council action.

Um the Denver Arts and Venues Special Revenue Fund, the internal billings uh reimbursement special revenue fund, both of those are appropriated special revenue funds, and so we are only allowed to spend as much out of those funds as council has approved.

And so in each of these cases, even though the increased expenditures are fully offset by either Arts and Venues Revenue or Denver International Airport Revenue in the case of the internal billings special revenue fund, we still need city council authorization to spend those higher levels.

Okay, and so the other two, those are coming from DEN?

That is correct.

So we've got an internal billings fund that is used by DEN, uh used by several other agencies where, for example, uh there might be city attorneys or human resources staff who are billed then to the uh airport or to Denver Human Services, uh Denver International Airport, use for all of the police and fire costs associated for work out at the airport.

And so we use this internal billings special revenue fund to account for those costs so that they're not coming out of the police department's general fund budget.

Uh so that's kind of the setup, and it's an appropriate fund uh that we still need the approval of city council uh to spend out of.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate the clarification.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Council President Sandoval.

Um thank you.

What's the difference, Justin, in the slide deck?

Sorry, of uh what's the difference between fund 11.8 to 11827, which is the liabilities claims, and liabilities claims 9926100.

So the 996200 is actually a transfer appropriation, and so what happens is we are requesting that that 1.2 million dollars that's right now in general fund contingency be rescinded from general fund contingency and then appropriated in that transfer appropriation, and then out of that transfer appropriation, we would be able to make that 1.2 million dollar transfer to the liabilities and claims fund.

Got it.

And so when we do when we vote at council on any liability, any liabilities, do they all come out of 11827?

They do.

No matter let me ask one more quick different question.

Out of all departments, so like if city, um, I think we had to pull some out of a claim for the um civil service.

Did it come out of that fund as well?

Um I believe in some cases for employment related settlements, those will come out of agency budgets.

I defer to Ashley if she wants to speak in more detail to that.

Yes, Councilman, that is correct.

So, most um liability and claims settlements come out of the liability and claims fund, but some agencies choose to pay for employment settlements out of their own budgets, and those don't always come out of liability and claims, and then another question.

I'm pulling up the slide deck.

Sorry, I have too many tabs open.

Um for the for the drivers of the overtime chief.

Was it also um due to the fact that we had the international convention of police chiefs?

Was that a driver of overtime?

Yeah, I think we can tie maybe $500,000 with the overtime specific to that event.

To that weekend, yeah, because that was the same weekend as the no kings.

There was a no kings that Saturday, yes.

Yes, so you had two conflicting things.

You had correct probably overtime at the noons, and then overtime at the I can't remember the acronym, all I can remember is international chiefs.

Yeah, and so and I think also um important to clarify that not only have we had more um demonstrations this year than in recent years past, but they also I think are are expanding in complexity and length of time and things like that.

Okay.

So then on slide 11, the um no, that one I already answered.

The unemployment compensation billings in 2012, is that due to the layoffs so people could claim unemployment?

It is council member or council president.

Uh so in uh current year uh we paid out approximately two million dollars in separation payouts, about two million dollars in severance, uh, and then we anticipated some amount of costs associated with unemployment.

Really challenging to predict those savings though would accrue in an agency's budget, whereas we do pay out all unemployment claims out of the standalone appropriation in the Department of Finance.

But yes, we believe that that would be kind of the maximum amount necessary, 1.8 million total.

Um, depending on what happens due to the layoffs in.

I have a question.

Stephanie, can I find a friend?

Um, no, friends can she just and you just might not know the answer.

When we did the um in 2020, we did the incentive for early retirement.

I don't know, I don't have the right terminology.

Yeah, Stephanie, I'm the deputy chief financial officer, and you're calling on a five-year memory.

But yes, we did do um, we we were because we were looking for we were concerned about cash.

So I would argue that that was a cash issue.

Um we did do an early entire retirement incentive.

That's actually probably not the right way to say it.

We incented people who were eligible for retirement to to actually um retire.

And when we did that programming, were I can't remember, were they eligible for unemployment then?

They were not because they had to actually retire.

Okay, so this is the difference is back then they didn't they retired.

This one was a layoff, so then if a layoff they're eligible for unemployment.

That's correct.

And of course, as Justin explained, we provided severance, and so that actually prolongs um when we actually pay unemployment, and of course, hopefully, many of them are able to get positions and jobs, and that would also impact how much unemployment we provide.

So this wouldn't be Apple's like a comparison to what we did during COVID.

No, it wouldn't, although it's interesting.

I was just looking at the 2020 supplementals, and we did do a supplemental for unemployment insurance rate 20.

But you know why?

That was because the federal government actually upped the amount of unemployment.

I know it's hard, it was a long time ago, but they did a lot of different things, including increasing the unemployment benefit.

Okay, because I remember doing unemployment compensation, I told you the other time, but I was so I just lack of memory.

I was trying to okay.

Between the two of us, we piece it together.

Got it.

Okay, and then um, it I don't think anyone else went up over it, but I just want to always do my best to be transparent.

City council has some money in here as well.

Um, I think we have 35,000 in here, and we had talked about that, and that's also for payouts for us as a small agency.

It's hard for us to carry all of that funding within central, and so we do have 35,000 within this um whole bucket as well for payouts for city council.

Thank you.

Think my mature.

Great, thank you.

Um, yeah, I just want to I wanted to mention that as well.

Thanks, Council President, for bringing that up.

Um, uh and this sort of relates to my question for you, Chief.

Um, in pre-so, so city council and smaller agencies get an allocation from the budget, um, and then uh things like paying for separations from staff who leave over the course of the year and having to pay out their vacate extra vacation days and things like that.

Um, we don't have the budget as a small agency to cover that kind of stuff because we are not allocated that kind of stuff out of the general fund to begin with, right?

So that's why we could go for a supplemental every year.

Um, and that's why when you know we get asked to pay for extra things that we didn't budget for, we have to say no because we can't pay for them because we we're not budgeted those dollars to begin with, right?

And we run real lean.

Um in the past, what has happened with the police department is you guys have paid your overtime out of vacancy savings.

Um those vacancy savings were taken away in 2025 due to the budget crisis.

Is that correct?

Uh generally speaking, maybe just think of Google.

Yeah, no, I think that is a fair characterization.

Okay, so what I'm thank you.

So what I'm trying to just wrap my mind around is these dollars that we're looking at here, um, the 11 million or so, we are looking at in 2025 because vacancy savings for all agencies were deleted in 2025.

But these costs have happened before.

We've just never seen them.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

I think what what I would need it in it proposes, yeah, we're we're kind of in that transition year where um a lot of the costs are still there, however, the vacancy savings to absorb those costs have been removed.

Okay.

Um in the 2026 budget, those vacancy savings are deleted as well.

That is correct.

Okay, great.

Thank you for confirming.

And then moving forward, since the day after you close the books for 2026, you start 2027, so April 1st of 2026, when you start 2027, um, is it the policy of the Department of Finance that moving forward uh those vacancy savings will continue to be deleted?

So I think we uh, like you said, are in a really tough budget spot and and simply did not have the capacity based on revenue to uh refill the vacancy savings that were removed from the police department budget for 2025.

They are out of the budget for 2026.

I think without knowing what our revenue picture is for 2027, can't say for certain, but I think it will be challenging to add back vacancy savings where they've been taken out, I believe, in 2027.

Okay, so this is not the last time we're gonna see a supplemental request like this for the police department.

It's just the first time that we're seeing a supplemental request like this come through for the police department.

And I defer to uh Chief Thomas, but I but I do think there are some efforts in motion that started earlier this year that will continue into 2026 and beyond to mitigate the need for additional supplemental appropriations.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Um, and and I think that that's right, but they're mitigating is not the same thing as getting rid of all together, right?

I mean, we have no control over how many protests happen in our city.

We have no control over um how many requests are made from neighborhood organizations for the police uh community outreach team to go out there and present, right?

Like there are just there are things in our police department in particular um that we cannot control as it comes to overtime.

So it seems like if the policy moving forward is gonna be that we are not going to have um vacancy savings built into agency budgets, then we are going to see certainly the police department and probably other agencies come through with these kinds of requests.

Um certainly here where you're coming from.

I think what I would offer, so there's a joke that economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions.

Uh in the budget management office, I think you could joke that we have predicted nine out of the last five supplemental appropriations.

We are working with agencies uh really from the end of the third first quarter of the year.

So January, February, March, it's really hard to foretell what an agency's expenditure trajectory will be.

They're primarily focused on closing out the prior year, getting those invoices paid.

Uh we are doing that on a citywide basis.

Come March, April, that's when we start working with agencies to look at their spend trajectory.

The earlier on in the year, the more ability there is to kind of bend that cost curve.

Uh and then of course, as more and more of the year elapses, you start running out of options because you've incurred so many costs.

And so um, so I think you you are uh counsel uh or chair sawyer uh correct that it will be uh more challenging.

I am not ready to concede at this point that we are locked into supplemental appropriations for 2026 yet or beyond, just because we do work with agencies, and probably if we had um if you'd asked us a few months ago, there would have been several other agencies on that list of potentially needing supplemental appropriations that now uh no longer need those supplementals.

Okay, really appreciate that.

I think that adds a lot more clarity for me, um, just in terms of how we got to where we got why we have not seen this.

I mean, I've been here six years and I've never seen DPD come through and ask for 11 million dollars in contingency, right?

Um, that's startling.

So understanding why, I think makes a lot of sense.

Um now that I understand the bigger picture, which is those vacancy savings were all deleted from every agency budget in order to balance our budget this year.

Um, okay.

This is an action, these two are action items.

We're gonna move them in a block.

This is 1891 and 1892.

Moved by council member Flynn.

Do I have a second?

No, second.

Second council member Cashman.

Do I need a roll call vote?

Thumbs up from everybody.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

We'll see you on the floor.

Really appreciate that.

Um, so that was our only action item for today.

And then we do have um a briefing coming up.

This is from Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez and I, um, and Anne, who's gonna run our slide deck for us, uh, to talk about the 2026 state legislative priorities.

Um, I will just kick us off by saying um we sent you all a survey to ask your for your feedback on kind of your legislative priorities and and where and framed it around our council priorities.

Um, so Anna's gonna go through kind of the feedback and uh broad strokes of what that looks like, and then uh Councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez is gonna lead since I'm chairing the committee on um kind of what next steps are and and kind of where we go from here.

So, Ann, if you want to introduce yourself and take it away, that'd be great.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ann Wallace, legislative policy analyst.

Um, as the chair said, I have just a very short slide deck to kind of go over the results of the survey.

Um, it was a survey on 2026 state legislative priorities.

It opened at the end of September and was open for about a month.

Um, and the survey asked council to rank the importance of nine legislative priorities on a scale of one to ten.

And as mentioned, those priorities were based on the budget goals that council had set.

The members were also asked to suggest specific state policies to track.

Uh nine members responded to the survey, and we had 129 legislative policies or topics submitted, and the nine priorities all received an average cumulative ranking between eight and nine.

So they were all pretty close together.

There was really no standouts there.

But you'll see on this side the legislative priority rankings are here.

Um the top two were prioritize climate response with an average ranking of nine out of 10, and then address Denver's housing needs with an average ranking of 8.89.

Um, you'll see though that the other seven priorities really weren't far behind ranking-wise, so that would indicate that kind of all nine priorities are um of importance to council members as we think about the 2026 session.

And looking at the submissions for policies or topics to track, so as stated, we had 129 submissions.

So 106 of those were submitted under one of the uh nine priorities, and 23 were made kind of in the other in the other category and didn't really fall under one of those nine priorities.

The submissions fell into three general categories.

So there were plenty of specific legislation or policy changes, but then I also saw um some requests for to track state budget increases or reductions, so that's gonna be a big topic this year, I think.

And then there were also some submissions that were kind of just general topics to monitor, and I will show you examples of those three categories in the next couple of slides.

So here are some examples of specific legislation.

Um, as I said, there were plenty more than just this, but um things like language access and multilingual notice requirements for housing and rezoning, broadband infrastructure support for underserved neighborhoods, sentencing changes or municipal sentencing regulation efforts.

So kind of specific policies or legislation to track.

So changes to state tax credits for electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other energy efficiency retrofits, funding for the state crime lab, expansion of state supported housing vouchers or rental subsidy funds, jail bed funding, so requests to track those kind of state budget issues.

And then finally, just some general topics to monitor.

So mental health and substance use disorder, artificial intelligence came up, early childhood education, water protection, so just kind of issues to keep an eye on that don't have a specific policy associated with them.

And that's all the slides I have about the survey and the responses to the survey.

And there are a couple of slides here, just a reminder about the city's process to take positions on state legislation.

So I'll go to the first slide if that works.

Yeah, that works.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it nothing has changed in our process.

And I think we talked a little bit about it, I don't know, maybe a month ago, of what that process is.

So how it currently is, and we'll continue for this next session is that there once we take the priorities that we have received from you all, we do want to you know narrow down on, you know, what are our council priorities that line up with the mayor's office priorities because we are in a joint contract for the lobby, the lobby team, and those will then be the city and county of Denver priorities, right?

And so those will be things that we know as councilwoman Sawyer and I are hearing things coming through during legislative committee that we know we've already have an agreement on these bigger bucket areas.

And typically, if it is something that has a direct impact on city functions, those are usually things that we will make that decision during the committee.

Now there are a number of things that maybe we know that council members won't have an agreement on, or it's contentious, or we know that there are differing opinions on it.

Those are the things that we'll be requesting council feedback on.

And so for those, just uh similar to last year, you will receive an email that will now come from Ann, and that email will detail all the bills that we had discussed in the legislative committee, and there will be the spreadsheet link where you will be able to indicate your feedback.

And there will be a couple, um, I think an additional option that we added this year.

Perhaps your idea, thank you for adding that piece of need more information, right?

So we had um the support, um, oppose, amend, monitor, no position.

Yeah, sorry, I'll go to the yeah, sorry, I can go back to that one.

Yeah, so these are the main buckets, right?

Support, oppose, amend, monitor, neutral, and no position.

And then in the document, it will have an option for need more information.

And what that is going to tell us is that if we have enough council members that are saying we just need more information, we can't take a position yet.

That pings for us that we need to go back to the legislative committee to the city agencies, whomever, to make or the lobby team to find out what is the uh to get the information that is needed or make sure that you have those connections so that we can make some decisions.

Um, so those are the main areas, and last year there was a slide, and you all should have it, but we can also send resend it out.

But under each of these buckets, there are kind of subbuckets, and those are dependent on how strongly are we going to support something.

Like, are we gonna send somebody from uh a city agency to go testify as an expert testimony?

Um, and that's like a strongly support type of a thing, or a strongly oppose where we're saying we cannot have this in Denver, this will be bad for us.

We may need to send somebody to go testify on behalf of that from one of the city agencies, and that is if, of course, we're all in agreement.

Can you go back one slide real quick, Ann?

Sorry, I got out ahead of myself.

So if council feedback is needed, um, you will get the email, we will ask for you to respond.

We are going to put a deadline on that response.

Um, because we can't keep trying to chase everybody.

We have to be able to make decisions so that we can move swiftly through the process as the session doesn't care about our process.

Um, and so we have um the process is if the majority don't support, then there is no basically there's no city position because again, we have to reach agreement right now as it currently stands with the mayor's office that may slightly change depending on the contract, which we're waiting to get full updates on.

We uh have a majority in support that and the mayor does not support, we still don't have a city position.

But if all the stars align, and we support, and the mayor's office supports and possibly another entity such as Den, again, we may have a third um leg to that stool, which we need to find out.

Um, then we would take an official city position.

And I have a the the asterisk on the bottom says, and this was something that we talked about last time is that the majority means the majority of those who have responded, okay?

If that makes sense for folks.

So it's not like our what we do when we vote because we're taking action on an item that is before us, um, that we uh things pass by simple majority.

We're not taking action on this, right?

This is about feedback, and so that's why it's majority of the majority that respond.

So that's why it's important to respond.

That's all I got.

Anything you want to add?

Great.

Thank you.

Uh no, I think you got it all.

I think the two big major changes for this year is number one, an option to flag for us that you need more information before you make a decision so that we can do some work on the back end, which I think is helpful, um, as opposed to just not responding at all, um, or leaving something blank, and then uh number two, there will be a deadline.

We uh because we have a partnership with the mayor's office, and then um we cannot hold up everyone else due to our process.

So there will be a deadline, you will respond by it, or you will lose your opportunity to have an opinion on that particular one.

Um, so we're gonna go to questions.

Councilmember Flynn and then council President Sandoval.

Um, chair.

Uh as again with last year.

I have a lot of heartburn about majority means, majority of those who reply.

Um I mean, there's this is a body of 13, and I understand how frustrating it's been and how fast moving it is.

I think I've always responded.

I don't know that I haven't.

Um I know that some folks it's hard for them to get to, especially it needs more information.

So thank you for adding that because how quickly things move, usually I need more information immediately, especially if an agency that's involved hasn't given us its input, so I don't know its impact.

Um so that's very helpful.

Um, I think there should be a floor on the number of respondents.

If only three members respond and two say yes and one says no, does that mean the city council supports something?

What should be the threshold for a minimum number of respondents before we say this is an official city council position on a bill?

Um, would the needs more information response count as a respondent?

Yes.

Okay, that's helpful then.

That's helpful.

Um, that's my observation.

I think we ought to set a floor uh minimum of six members need to respond, or nine members need to respond, or seven need to respond.

So it's not two say yes, one say no, and ten others didn't respond.

So city council takes this position, and that's just not true.

Yeah, I'm gonna push back on that a little bit.

I understand what you're saying, and I I hear you, and you're I don't think anything you have said is wrong.

City council is in a position.

You tell my kids that city council is in a position where we are partners with the mayor's office and with Den in this contract, and there are clear requirements in order to take a position, and so we have to be good partners, and unfortunately, we have city council members who have not been good partners up to this point, and that has led us to a place where we have to be able to make a decision so that we are being good partners to the mayor's office and den who are shared in this contract.

Um, in a perfect world, what we would do is we would be able to afford our own contract, and we would have a lobbyist, and mayor's office would have a lobbyist, and Den would have a lobbyist.

And then we could put something like that together.

But in this shared contract space, we cannot as city council hold up agreement withhold agreement from the other two shared members of this contract because we are non-responsive, and we have city council members who are simply non-responsive.

I can you completely understand that dilemma.

Yeah.

And I sympathize with it.

I'm just saying.

Respond, you guys.

We need to have, I mean, we need to have at least a floor.

I when I read in a newspaper, for instance, Denver City Council supports X, and only four members responded at all.

That's that's hard for me to have a penalty for members who don't respond.

For context, that has not happened.

Yeah.

We do get to uh at least, usually at least seven, six or seven, six, seven.

Sorry.

So that's all happened.

You do that on purpose, right?

Um, but no, but we we do actually get to that amount, and we have everybody has access to the document.

You can look yourself, look at it yourself, and um, you know, that's I don't know.

That's what it is.

Yeah, I mean, we get a uh can we get a and maybe uh uh review of last year and the year before.

If we did we did a similar format the year before, maybe not exactly, yeah.

Last year's what's been the typical response?

Yeah, I think last year's was pretty uh is probably the best one to go by because that was really kind of where things were put uh in place solidly, right?

The year before that was like the first year, and everything was kind of last minute, and we didn't even have a contract with the lobbyist until the last second, and there was a lot.

Um so I think uh I think last year's is a good one.

And if you uh go back, you should still have the link, it's still on SharePoint, right?

Um, but if you go back and you take a look at it, we did manage to get pretty solid um responses from enough people to really have a majority.

I think the issue is um when things are moving really quickly, especially towards the end of the session, and we're hoping that um by putting in a deadline, a very clear deadline of when things need to be responded by, um, that will help this issue.

So, so it has not historically been a problem.

Um, it hopefully will not continue to be a problem, but we we cannot hold up the a decision-making position of the city and county of Denver because we aren't checking our email.

Exactly.

That's our fault.

We we can't put, you know, if the mayor's office is ready to go and we should be ready to go, but we don't quite have seven, that's frustrating.

Maybe we could bring the can we bring this up maybe at ops next week and uh just to stress the importance of this.

Uh, we gotta move quickly.

And thank you for adding the need more information.

Yeah, that was her idea.

Um thank you for adding.

I think what we'll get hard is we will know that you need more information, but um, this committee is once a month, right?

So we it's very difficult to schedule in like updates and stuff like that.

So we may go to Serena's committee, we may ask someone, you know, committee of reference if we can squeeze in.

We may make phone calls, we might get an email from um, you know, from an agency with the kind of explanation of the position that they're on.

We will figure that out on our end to make sure that you get the information that you need.

The new committee structure makes it a little bit harder than it otherwise would have been.

When I would get the emails, say, okay, we need your, you need to weigh in on these bills.

I would go to uh what legislative council uh chooses, you know, what the description of the bill is.

Is that a has that always been fairly reliable to encapsulate the meaning of the bills?

Yes, it is, but um, and I've I've sent this explainer before, and I could go find it again and send it out where I gave you step-by-steps of uh for everybody to be able to access where the information is.

The fiscal note is actually a great place to look.

Um, because in the fiscal note, it does like a full breakdown of what the bill does.

The legislative summary that is on like the main bill page when you pull it up.

Sometimes they aren't updated as quickly when there are amendments that are made.

And so, but you can navigate all throughout that page and find amendments and look at how the committee voted.

Like there's there's tons of information and they do for the most part keep it tracked in real time.

So the the last thing I'll just point out too is that the majority if you know how our definition is of support also means that if if majority of council supports it, then we support it as a body, right?

Or we oppose it as a body.

Um, and so I just want to make sure that that's clear.

Um, from the start, so that if that's how we're representing our position.

So I just want to make sure that's everybody understands that.

Yeah, and I will just build off of that as a reminder for everyone there is a difference between us as individual council members, council as a body, and the city and county of Denver taking a position, right?

So what we are talking about with this contract, uh, the shared contract with the mayor's office and with then is the city and county of Denver taking a position.

That is different from city council taking a position, and it is different from city council members taking a position in their individual capacity.

So I just want to make that really clear and kind of remind everyone on that because it gets complicated, right?

And that's why when we are talking about the official legislative position of the city and county of Denver, we have to be good partners because council, the mayor's office, and then who all share in the cost of this contract and all share a lobbyist, have to come to some sort of agreement on what that official position of city and county of Denver is.

Now we have had council members who have disagreed with the official position of the city and county of Denver and have stood up at council at uh committee hearings at the state and said that and said, you know, we the city official position of city and county of Denver is X, and I disagree with that in my uh capacity as an elected official, and that is a hundred percent okay as long as that's the first sentence that comes out of your mouth when you're testifying, right?

You cannot, no one can, the mayor cannot um stand up and represent the official position of the city and county of Denver as it if it is his position, and the three contract holders have not come to an agreement.

So this gets hairy, right?

Um, and it is on us as individuals to make clear to everyone else whether we are in support of the official position of the city and county of Denver or whether we are in opposition to the official position of the city and county of Denver.

All of those are okay, it's the transparency and notification piece that is important.

Uh next up is Council President Sandoval.

Thank you.

Um, so thank you all for this.

At the beginning, when will you send out?

Will you still use the same type of uh spreadsheet?

When will that get sent out every week?

No, I mean, like the first one, uh once we have that sent out.

Yeah, I think it's already out, but once we have bills that we start adding to it, okay, yeah.

Remind me who sends it out because I don't have okay.

When did you send that out?

Do you remember?

The first one?

No, I just mean like how can we make sure that this could work.

I'm not every Monday afternoon is the goal to send it out every month from Anne.

From Anne, with all the information of what bills we need, their positions, and then do we still get in separate email from policy matters?

We should still be getting that regular email from policy matters of updates, yes.

Okay, so um at our next operation meeting, December 1st.

Can I put you two on the agenda?

And could you clearly write that out, like delineate that out?

Like Monday, they'll get an email from Anne, then Fridays, I think we get email from Policy Matters, and if it means more information, do we just check that and then it magically comes to us, or do we need to be proactive, and my staff needs to say who do I email?

Because sometimes I will say the policy matters.

I email usually Tanya, but then I get emails back from other people on the staff, and it's hard for me to follow because I'm like they don't all see each other in the real world.

It's really weird.

I get weird emails, and I have a hard time following like all of it because if I email Tanya, I would rather have a response from that email so I could track the subject line instead of getting a new email with a um the bill number that I don't understand.

Cause I'm like, wait, I'm like, I don't know if that is that way.

So if we could just work on that process with policy matters.

Can I ask you a follow-up question just to clarify?

So would it be easier and or better if you CC'd one or both of us on that email because then we can track it and have a conversation about it in our ledge meeting that happens on Mondays.

CC you both and and if that's how so that it could just to flag it for us so that we know what's going on.

Yeah, so this on Monday.

So and this is what I um provided last year.

Was that everyone has access obviously to the lobby team?

You can reach out to them and say, Can you help me get more information?

We, of course, have uh all of our policy um analysts that I think have all been helpful in helping us like find out more information or see if they can get any additional information on things.

Um I'm not personally going to go and like let me find all this stuff and get it to you, and that's why we have those other supports.

To your question about will it magically appear?

Um, I would say no, but what we will do is we will we will do the due diligence of taking that back to the team as well and saying, Council President Sanoval needs more information.

Um we need that follow-up, but and then also to your point around like who's responding and what like yeah, we can now have those conversations with the lobby team to make sure there's a streamlined process.

That'd be great.

Yeah, we can have a streamlined process.

Like if I send it to Tanya, if she forwards it to someone, they should just reply back to that original email that makes sense.

So starting the brand new email because that's where it got lost in the shuffle last year for me.

Okay, um, and then why don't I why don't we just put you at the way that we have operations now?

It's always at the first of the month.

Why don't we just have you standing of operations every month and you all just report out that way it's this committee and then operations just as a fun friendly reminder is like out budget working group.

Then we'll have the budget working group, we'll have HR, and then we'll have the state wedge.

Um, and then that way people can say, Oh, I don't remember too much because it is a lot.

Um, but it's just what you have to make time for.

If this is like I I went and testified for the ADU, that was a huge important piece for me, and now we're still with the ADU, right?

Like having follow-up from that.

Um we hear it's coming back, yeah.

So thank you all for the work on this because it's super challenging.

And council member Flynn, I would just ask that if you want a super, like if you want seven people, and you're on the spreadsheet, call the people who don't reply.

It can't just be these two people.

I've like self-appointed them as council president to help us on that.

But if you're seeing that people haven't replied, I have done that.

When I have my weekly check-in with Pro Tem and Benita, I'll be like, Hey, have you looked at the spreadsheet and weighed in?

And she'll be like, Oh, oh yeah, thanks for the reminder.

Or if I'm having a conversation with someone else, I'll be like, Hey, have you weighed in on the spreadsheet?

And they're like, Oh no, thanks for the reminder.

So I just think it has to be all of us who are.

So if you're having a conversation with someone about a bill or lunch, say, hey, just find a reminder, they ain't on the spreadsheet because we all have to participate.

It's so hard to have the two of them just lead this.

It's literally feels like sometimes hurting cats.

I don't need to like throw us all under the bus, but it really it's been really a lot, and they went through like a whole black belt process under council member um Taurus.

We did like we did the um Green Belt, we like try to bring in the peak performance team.

I mean, we really have I've met with Adam over there, I've met with Dominic.

I mean, I've met with Policy Matters.

It is not easy.

So thank you both for taking this on and adding more work to your workload during this period of time.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

Council Pro Temer Mario Campbell, hi.

I don't know why.

Just because I was like, oh, call me out.

Like, oh, yes, reminders.

Um, appreciate it.

We're on there.

No, it's true.

I was like, oh my gosh.

Um, so one of my questions have been has been answered.

It's policy matters that's our lobbyist team.

Okay, um, I do have, and I and I do appreciate the the follow-up and and this conversation in general.

I my wondering is around uh what was it, 160 some priorities that we had of interest?

That's a lot, and so if everything's your priority, then nothing's your priority.

Do we have some way that we have like categorize those in our buckets of our council goals or is there something that kind of like helps us prioritize and does policy matters have the capacity to track 160 plus priorities for the council?

Yeah, do you want to take that one?

Yeah, I mean, that's what I was talking about at the beginning is that we need to hone in on actual like priorities.

Um, and I know that we start from a place of the budget goals, like that's the starting point.

Um, and so I think that's the next step is to hone in on those priorities, and then we'll work with the mayor's office to see where there are places of of common ground.

So then we have a one pager that is uh, and everybody gets that we get sent it out last year as well that says these are the city's priorities, and then we'll have a separate document that it says these are city council priorities.

Now we can't activate the lobbyist on city council priorities, and what we saw last year, we saw council members becoming active in their own capacity, or they were asking for council members to sign on to a letter in support or oppose to something, and that's within everybody's own prerogative, everyone on the body, right?

To to that you you have your own autonomy to be able to do those kinds of efforts and lobbying that you want to do on your own, but we can't use the contract lobbyists for our council stuff, and if it is a body's priority, um, then yeah, we can all join forces and work together to try to you know go down and and be there as a team and lobby or call the legislators that you might have a relationship with to ask them to support something or oppose something.

Great.

Um, thank you.

And then I'm also wondering about the needs more information.

I would be one that would check a box of hey, needs more information.

Um I think we all would for the agencies that um it would go out to because that's basically agencies would be say, hey, what's the impact on um us for the city?

Um can we just monitor or just be I think aware of the time that it's gonna take for those because I imagine it's the liaisons, the executive directors and what it's what their time is that's being put into it.

I don't want to be put in, I don't want to unnecessarily burden because we need more information, good for policy, but also what is that time, um, that they are spending on responding to us.

So it's it's a give and take, and I think I don't know, Adam, if you have that from like the city perspective, but do you understand what I'm saying?

Like it could become the full time job of somebody just responding.

Well, I will tell you right now, it already is.

And do we already have somebody?

It already is, right?

That's what our legislative liaisons do.

Yes, they're council management handler handlers, but that like that is what they actually are hired to do, is to um help go through all of the legislative, whether it be federal, state, or local, that are affecting that agency, that's their job.

So their uh the the relative speed at which they can do their job, especially as things get close to the end of session, um, gets a little hairy, right?

But but asking them for additional information, that's their job.

That's what a legislative liaison and city company never does.

No, absolutely, and I get that that's their job, but I also think right now there are those liaisons tend to also be very busy with just questions that we have for city council follow-up and being a liaison with us for things that are coming across our desk or across, you know, for Monday night.

Um, so just it's just something to be mindful of.

I think so that's why that's be mindful of it.

That's why that's that's not just on them, right?

So there's the city agency feedback, which should already be, we should be getting.

Sometimes we might not get it in the time that we're sending out the information, and we may have to follow up with that information.

Um, but that information should be coming now.

Now, if you want more information from that city agency, that's fine, but sometimes the information is not gonna come from the city agency, it might need to come from the bill sponsor, it might need to come from like the lobby team doing some research and finding out like what does this mean or what kind of impact could this have.

Um, and then even our policy analysts.

So I think it's utilizing all the tools that are there, and it's not just incumbent upon the city agencies.

We're already getting their feedback.

And if there's a follow-up, we of course like ask them a follow-up button.

No, and I I appreciate that, and that's good clarification.

I think the ADU is a good one because then that would have gone back to like the bill sponsor for additional information for what we were looking for.

So, I didn't do that.

I didn't I hardly went to CPD for the ADU.

I worked with the bill sponsor, and then I had them give me all of that information.

Then I went to that group and I said, Hey, do you have information?

I never went to the city council liaisons, like let's say um Alana for Dottie.

Yeah, I never reached out to her.

Not once.

And I never reached out to our central office, not once.

No, and I and I agree, and that's why I'm saying with the ADU example, that's another way to see it.

Um it helps kind of put it into perspective, just how we were talking.

It also seems like, okay, if we need more information and wanting it from our agencies, it's just a something to keep out there for for thought.

Yeah, so I'll give you a good example.

But I appreciate that there's more information.

No, I'll give you a really good example.

So last year, SB1 was an elections bill, right?

Um, I learned about it sitting in the policy committee for CML.

Watson learned about it sitting in a policy committee for Mac, right?

Um, Serena knew about it because she knew the people running the bill, right?

The clerk's office ostensibly knew about it because they're a clerk um in the state of Colorado.

So there were like everyone sort of knew about it.

The challenge was getting everyone into a room together to understand like uh what the actual impacts are to city and county of Denver, should there be a you know shared position, what are the what cost benefit analysis, all of those things, which can only really come from the clerk's office because he's the expert in the room on what is going on there, right?

So every Wednesday we have a meeting where we set aside time with every agency that for something like that comes up so that we can get the agency feedback as well, and it's clear.

So it comes to you in an email, but we the three of us have a meeting set up every Wednesday, time set aside for an agency to come to us and talk us through exactly what's going on so that we can make sure that that information gets shared.

So it's there, it's just that you don't we took that off your plate.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're good with that, and I think actually that's a really great example.

Yeah, yeah.

And a lot of times they don't have a fiscal, they they don't impact us like a lot.

I would say a lot, a lot.

So when I said need more information, mine is I usually try to figure out who the bill sponsor is, then I text these people, and I'm like, can you just give me direct line with that bill sponsor?

And then I go directly to the bill sponsor.

I did that for five bills last year because I was like, 'What are you doing?

Um, and so then I just contact my office manager and said set me up there.

Yeah.

It's not normally the in our city agencies.

So as much as possible, helpful to put need more information, and then what information we need.

Well, I would say, or on the yeah, in conversation, but I'm just playing this out in my mind.

On the sheet, you choose need more information, and then you email us and say, I need here's the information I'm looking for.

I don't understand and it could be everything from who's the bill sponsor to I don't understand what the impacts are of this to the city and county of Denver to I don't understand why we're worrying or wasting our time on this one, it feels like a bad use of our time, to anything in between, right?

Like uh, you could send them examples of your emails that you've been.

Um, but I was what I was gonna say too, bill sponsor is on the website.

Please don't ask us who the bill sponsor is.

If you need contact information, that's different.

Yeah, but like literally everybody can go to the it's very detailed, and it's good and you guys putting the links.

If there's four bill sponsors who they are in the house in the senate, sometimes there might not be a Senate bill sponsor or house, depending on which chamber it starts in, but there is usually somebody.

There has to be somebody for introduction.

So we will help you, please, please, please.

Because if I'm not gonna feel bad, you appreciate that.

I mean, I think that with the spreadsheet that's sent and the links that are available, it's really I mean we provide all the information.

100% it's it's really.

I would say if you're asking for information, I would include our and we'll verify who we email from the lobby team.

But if you're emailing us, I would add ask that you add the lobby team.

100% because that will help mitigate an extra stack.

It should be to the lobby team and CCL.

Correct.

They're our connection to that information.

Yes.

Yeah.

And they often will have insider background information.

That's what we pay them for, right?

Um, if there are five bill sponsors on something, they might and you want more information, they might say you we're gonna connect you to this bill sponsor because we have a relation, a long-standing relationship with them, and um, you know, an open conversation versus we're we would recommend that you not reach out to this bill sponsor because they, you know, hate the city and county of Denver, which I hear a lot sitting on the CML executive board.

Oh yeah, they hate us.

Uh yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot there.

So um right, so yeah, they and that's their expertise, and that's why we have a contract with them because we need that kind of expertise.

So that's why you go to them.

Yeah.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

I appreciate the robust conversation about this.

That's all great.

Um, all right.

Anything else from anyone else?

Appreciate it.

Okay.

With that, there are a couple items on consent no one has called off.

So those will move forward and we are adjourned.