OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Health and Safety Committee Briefing on Denver Health Sales Tax Spending Update – April 1, 2026

Council Committees — Wednesday, April 1, 2026
BodyDenver, Colorado
SessionCouncil Committees
DateWednesday, April 1, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:20:12

Transcript — Verbatim
0:00

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council.

0:09

Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

0:16

Hi, focus.

0:19

We are on air.

0:21

There is a very odd.

0:23

All right, here we are.

0:23

Thank you.

0:24

Welcome everyone to the Wednesday, April 1st, 2026 meeting of the Health and Safety Committee of Denver City Council.

0:32

I'm the co-chair, uh Kevin Flynn.

0:35

I represent Southwest Denver's District 2.

0:37

I'm chairing for Councilman Watson, who I think will be online.

0:40

In fact, I believe he is online right now.

0:42

Before we start with our presentation, I want to remind folks there are two items on consent that'll go forward unless there's objection before the end of the meeting.

0:51

Um we have a presentation from Denver Health on the two Q sales tax uh spending a quarterly update.

0:57

And so I want to welcome them.

0:58

But first, uh let me have uh members introduce themselves.

1:02

And we now have uh two members online.

1:05

Let's introduce the members online first in in the order of your district, starting with district nine um thank you.

1:13

Uh Vice Chair Um Flynn Um Daryl Watson representing the fine district nine.

1:19

And Sarah Parody, uh, one of your two council members at large.

1:23

And for the folks at the uh table, uh, because of April Fool's Day, let me mix it up a little bit.

1:28

Let me start at the far end on my right and work our way around counterclockwise.

1:36

You're awake.

1:37

I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to do this.

1:39

I mean, sorry, your district five.

1:41

Wait, which way do we go?

1:42

Yeah, which way are we going?

1:43

Oh, yeah.

1:46

Hi, everybody said Anna Gonzalez Gutierrez, your other council member at large.

1:50

Last but hopefully not least, Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

1:55

Thank you.

1:56

And seeing how well that went, I'll probably never do that again.

1:59

Um, welcome to Donald Lynn and your crew, and we're looking forward to this presentation.

2:04

Uh folks have probably had an opportunity to see it before, but uh the public hasn't.

2:09

So uh please proceed and introduce your team.

2:12

Great.

2:12

Um thank you so much, Councilman Flynn and Councilman Watson, uh, who are remote.

2:17

Um I'm Donna Lynn, the CEO of Denver Health.

2:19

Happy to be here to talk both about 2025 2Q spending and our 2026 spending plan.

2:28

So I'm gonna turn it to you to introduce Stephanie Seiner Government Community Relations.

2:33

Happy to be here.

2:34

Hi, I'll Elise Mattal.

2:36

Uh I am the Denver Health Sales Tax Administrator within the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment supporting as a liaison between Denver Health and the City.

2:44

Hey, I'm Justin Halspir, interim CFO of Denver Health.

2:48

And there may be questions that I turn to some of the other staff.

2:52

We've got about four or five here, uh, and we'll introduce them if they are uh necessary to respond to questions.

2:58

Is that okay?

2:59

Great.

3:00

All right.

3:00

May I begin?

3:01

You're good.

3:02

All right, let's go to the first slide.

3:04

And um just as I said, we're gonna break this into two sections because 2025 uh we closed out and we have a report on how we've spent the money and some of the accomplishments, and then 2026.

3:17

We will um look forward and there will there may be modifications uh to the plan as we go forward.

3:23

All right, so sorry because the first slide is really full of a lot of information, but just to refresh everybody's memory, um we received from the city what we call an MI payment, medically indigent payment.

3:35

We have gotten that since the separation of Denver Health and the City.

3:39

Um it has been fairly flat uh for many years, and I'll show you a slide in a few minutes about that.

3:47

Um as we've seen more people coming to Denver, more people moving to Denver, more patients coming to Denver Health, and certainly the cost of health care.

3:55

We've seen our what we call our uncompensated care increase, and that uncompensated care falls into two buckets.

4:02

One is people who are completely uninsured who come to Denver Health, and we have no um way of collecting any money from the federal government from that.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Public Health Policy█████████████████████████████████████████████48%
Pending Litigation█████████████████18%
Fiscal Sustainability█████████████14%
Contracts And Procurement█████████10%
Procedural████4%
Miscellaneous███3%
Data Management███3%
Summary of Proceedings

Health and Safety Committee Briefing on Denver Health Sales Tax Spending Update – April 1, 2026

On Wednesday, April 1, 2026, at 10:30 AM, the Denver City Council's Health and Safety Committee (chaired by Kevin Flynn, vice chair, presiding for Darrell Watson) received a briefing from Denver Health CEO Donna Lynne and staff on the 2025 spending of the 2Q (0.34% sales tax) revenue and the proposed 2026 spending plan. The meeting also approved two consent items. The committee discussed the financial sustainability of Denver Health, the impact of federal Medicaid cuts, and transparency metrics.

Consent Calendar

  • 26-0387: Approved a grant amendment with Vivent Health Inc. adding $125,915 and extending the term to December 31, 2026, for behavioral health and syringe access services citywide. Approved by consent.
  • 26-0399: Approved a contract amendment with Diversified Body Acquisition LLC adding two years (to May 31, 2028) for on-call firetruck repairs with no change to contract capacity. Approved by consent.

Briefing & Discussion

Denver Health Sales Tax Spending Update (26-0432)

Donna Lynne presented the 2025 spending and 2026 plan. Key statistics and positions:

  • The 2Q tax (3.4 cents per $10 purchase) generated approximately $65 million in 2025, with actual revenue slightly higher ($65.8 million) due to higher sales tax collections and lower administrative costs. An additional $1.8 million from the reconciliation will be applied to 2025 uncompensated care.
  • Uncompensated care exceeded $100 million for Denver residents in 2024, stabilizing in 2025. Denver Health receives $30.7 million annually from the city (MI payment), which has been flat since 1996, now only about 2% of the budget. 2Q provides about 4% of the budget.
  • 47% of Denver Health patients are on Medicaid, 20% on Medicare, and the rest on commercial or self-pay. Federal HR1 Medicaid cuts (work requirements, recertification twice a year, 30-day enrollment window) are expected to significantly reduce revenue starting in 2027, potentially causing 20,000 Denver residents to lose coverage.
  • 2025 2Q allocation by category: Emergency medicine and trauma ($34M, 51%), primary care ($14M, 20%), mental health ($13M, 20%), pediatrics ($2M, 3%), alcohol/substance use ($2M, 3%). The remaining gap in each category is covered by other revenues or operating losses. For example, emergency/trauma still has a $91 million funding gap after 2Q.
  • Accomplishments funded by 2Q include a hybrid OR, expanded dental/Lowry Saturday clinic, school-based clinics, IMAP behavioral health unit (12 beds, 70 patients served), two surgical robots, and paramedic workforce retention.
  • 2026 proposed 2Q spending plan: $67.7 million (up slightly), with similar percentages. The city plans to spend up to 1% on administrative costs (~$670,000) but expects to not use the full amount.
  • Councilmembers expressed strong support for the transparency and use of funds. Councilmember Torres asked about recurring vs. one-time costs (overwhelmingly ongoing salary/wages). Councilmember Gonzales-Gutierrez sought clarity on revenue sources – the 2Q and MI payments are not shown in the payer mix pie chart. Councilmember Parady asked for future reporting on quality metrics (wait times, access, clinical outcomes). Councilmember Cashman criticized the flat MI payment as "embarrassing" given inflation. Councilmember Watson asked what would have happened without 2Q – Lynne said it would lead to service cuts and eventual business failure. Councilmember Torres and others noted the disparity with for-profit hospitals (e.g., UC Health with $6.7B revenue).

Key Outcomes

  • The briefing was received and filed; no formal vote on the update.
  • Denver Health will work with city staff to include quality metrics in the end-of-year report and future quarterly updates.
  • The $1.8 million reconciliation from 2025 will be applied to 2025 uncompensated care, pending finalization.
  • Consent items 26-0387 and 26-0399 were approved unanimously by the eight members present (Flynn, Gonzales-Gutierrez, Parady, Sandoval, Sawyer, Torres, Watson, Kashmann).
  • The next spending plan review will be in August 2026.

Meeting Transcript

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council. Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now. Hi, focus. We are on air. There is a very odd. All right, here we are. Thank you. Welcome everyone to the Wednesday, April 1st, 2026 meeting of the Health and Safety Committee of Denver City Council. I'm the co-chair, uh Kevin Flynn. I represent Southwest Denver's District 2. I'm chairing for Councilman Watson, who I think will be online. In fact, I believe he is online right now. Before we start with our presentation, I want to remind folks there are two items on consent that'll go forward unless there's objection before the end of the meeting. Um we have a presentation from Denver Health on the two Q sales tax uh spending a quarterly update. And so I want to welcome them. But first, uh let me have uh members introduce themselves. And we now have uh two members online. Let's introduce the members online first in in the order of your district, starting with district nine um thank you. Uh Vice Chair Um Flynn Um Daryl Watson representing the fine district nine. And Sarah Parody, uh, one of your two council members at large. And for the folks at the uh table, uh, because of April Fool's Day, let me mix it up a little bit. Let me start at the far end on my right and work our way around counterclockwise. You're awake. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to do this. I mean, sorry, your district five. Wait, which way do we go? Yeah, which way are we going? Oh, yeah. Hi, everybody said Anna Gonzalez Gutierrez, your other council member at large. Last but hopefully not least, Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6. Thank you. And seeing how well that went, I'll probably never do that again. Um, welcome to Donald Lynn and your crew, and we're looking forward to this presentation. Uh folks have probably had an opportunity to see it before, but uh the public hasn't. So uh please proceed and introduce your team. Great. Um thank you so much, Councilman Flynn and Councilman Watson, uh, who are remote. Um I'm Donna Lynn, the CEO of Denver Health. Happy to be here to talk both about 2025 2Q spending and our 2026 spending plan. So I'm gonna turn it to you to introduce Stephanie Seiner Government Community Relations. Happy to be here. Hi, I'll Elise Mattal. Uh I am the Denver Health Sales Tax Administrator within the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment supporting as a liaison between Denver Health and the City. Hey, I'm Justin Halspir, interim CFO of Denver Health. And there may be questions that I turn to some of the other staff. We've got about four or five here, uh, and we'll introduce them if they are uh necessary to respond to questions. Is that okay? Great. All right. May I begin?

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