Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the budget and policy committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion.

As the budget and policy committee starts now.

Joining the case.

All right.

Thank you for joining us on this amazing hot July 13th day for the Denver Budget, City Council Budget and Policy Amanda Sandball, Northwest Denver District 1.

Do we have let's get started with our colleagues on Zoom and then we'll go around the room.

Hi, good afternoon.

Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then I'll start on my right.

Chris Hines.

Perfect time.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Dara Watson, fine, District 9.

Paul Cashman, South Denver, District 6.

Sonana Gonzalez Cochetas, one of your council members at large.

Thank you all.

So we have the civil service charter changed.

Councilwoman Torres and I have been working on.

And I'm going to pitch over to her at the other end of the table.

And I'll just interject as needed.

But proposed mostly we'll have Councilwoman Torres lead us through the presentation.

Okay, perfect.

Thanks everyone.

And thank you all for those who we've been able to brief beforehand.

This will largely be very familiar.

So Council President Sandoval and I after the passage of the charter change that authorized police and fire to recruit non-citizens.

That passed in November of last year and was implemented.

And we had heard immediately from Gracie that they had received applicants in their police academy recruitment pool who were in that particular category and were excited to process through the application process.

But that opened us up for really this bigger conversation about those two sections of the charter and whether or not they are as up to date as they need to be, as accurate as they need to be, and as contemporary.

So we started looking at the two sections of charter that governs Civil Service Commission and Classified Service.

One of the things that we led with, and Robin is here from the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Robin Jones worked with us because she was already working with the Department of Public Safety on applying an equity lens to several different policies that they had.

So she came on and joined us in applying and making sure we were ready to apply an equity lens to this work.

So it started with a workshop and making sure that we knew what that meant, particularly when we gathered all of the stakeholders who would be reviewing this language with us.

Tikis was our original one.

Brian came on as president of the PPA earlier this year.

I thank you.

Updating the charter with gender neutral language, so both sections of this charter would begin to do that for the entire charter, which I hope would be a future body of work.

We are removing another citizenship requirement.

There was a requirement that commissioners for the Civil Service Commission be citizens.

We're striking that.

So other people can apply to serve as commissioners in the future.

We still have the public safety kit up program under the civil service section of the charter.

It is not operationalized there.

It's operated out of the manager of safety section.

And so we're moving that to the actual manager of safety section of the charter, not taking it out, just moving it over to where it belongs.

We did extend a couple timelines for with the time period that the manager of safety has to assess and review disciplinary recommendations and suspension pending investigation.

Those were increased by maybe 10 days depending on which one of those.

And at the request of the manager of safety.

So those seemed easy and meaningful to update.

One of the things that the chief asked us to take a look at in particular was allowing folks who are on probationary period to have that period extended for special circumstances of leave, approved leave, like they've been called to military, they might be out for pregnancy or medical leave, that they can come back and still finish out their probationary period without having to start from the very beginning again.

And then we added two sections modification in what were what are caps or limitations on how big the command staff for both the police and the fire department can get.

The request from those chiefs was that we eliminate the caps.

We became fine with that, particularly because any future staffing increases are also a budget conversation.

It's not just an internal discussion that they increase or decrease command staff.

If you're increasing it, you're also having to identify FTE and budget to go along with that increase.

But we have heard from both departments that they would like to be able to have a contemporary command staff that reflects the different kinds of divisions that they're envisioning for the fire department and the police department.

One example in particular was Chief Fulton.

There is no deputy chief for EMT.

And they would like that, especially as they're growing that particular area out of our fire department.

This is the language that we're proposing beyond the ballot.

It's pretty brief and specific at the same time.

We're removing outdated language.

We're giving council the ability to add duties via code, so that's the companion ordinance that we're discussing, and then the extension for probation when required for medical, military, or other approved leave.

So the companion ordinance, we're aiming for this to accompany this charter amendment when it comes through committee, and working on making sure that we are not proposing changes necessarily to that language.

At this point, we just want to move what is overly prescriptive in from charter and put that overly prescriptive into code where it can actually be updated when it needs to be at a future date without having to constantly go back to the ballot every time.

And some of these things are really procedural stuff, like timelines, deadlines, kind of application requirements where there is not a charter language for it or companion code.

There exists the civil service rules as well.

So there are a lot of things that I think buffer.

What is the process look like?

This would be effective December of this year following the November election if approved by voters.

This has been our engagement timeline so far.

We obviously started with our meetings with OSCI, and then we convened the committee in September of 2025 and had several different meetings with those committee members to make sure that we were identifying language that should be changed, and everyone was able to offer what does this mean?

What does this mean?

Can that be clarified?

I don't like that language.

I'd prefer this language.

Everyone was able to offer edits, and then we were constantly in a back and forth with each of the departments and making sure that we were adequate accurately reflecting what they were hoping to see in the language.

This is our timeline.

Today we are at July 13th budget policy.

We aim to be at governance and intergovernmental relations committee July 21st with first reading July 27th, second reading August 3rd.

And aiming to be on the November 3rd ballot.

Yeah.

Any questions?

Yes, we have a cue.

And Council President, I welcome any comments that you might have.

Thank you.

Just want to say thank you to our staff.

Yeah.

So thank you to Moisa and Ian.

They did an amazing job.

And thank you to all the partners.

This was a huge iteration that we would sit down at this table, have a working group, send out information, collect that information back.

And so it took a whole army of people literally to get us this far.

So thank you all for everyone who had a hand in dealing with this.

It's really important.

In the queue, I have Councilman Alvidres, Councilwoman Sawyer, Councilmember Flynn.

Did I miss anyone else?

Councilmember Heinz?

Yep.

All right, go ahead, Council.

Thank you so much.

Um, and sorry that I wasn't able to make the briefing work, but I you know appreciate this.

It sounds pretty straightforward.

Um, I know you started by talking about the ordinance from a couple years ago that voters approved.

That's exciting about people applying.

Do we know if anyone's been hired?

Not that I know well, I don't know.

Okay, yeah.

The the class just finished, and so some paperwork hang ups have happened because of the person who's in the White House.

Yeah, yes.

That is kind of what's been on my mind in general about um just city workers in general that are struggling with that.

And so I'm curious if anyone from OHR can answer or what the procedure is there, or how we're handling.

We didn't bring OHR here because it didn't have anything.

Our charter change doesn't have a pertain to OHR, but I would suggest you reach out to them.

It's super complicated.

It would have to do with the sheriff's department, and I intervened on behalf of one applicant who was not getting their renewal um of DACA in time of graduation.

And um I I think they've tried to um offer some extension on the sheriff's department side.

Um, but that's been um one of the ways that the federal government's been a particular barrier and getting folks on in OHR handles the sheriff's department.

Same in DPD.

I talked to Chief Sanchez and someone graduated, and after right the day before he graduated, he had to go to go renew his DACA, and they were not looking like it was going to be renewed.

Yeah.

Um that's so challenging to hear about.

Um for the charter change.

I know you have the suggested language for the ballot, but would you have a red line of the how the charter would look, how it looks now and how it would look differently with this change?

There was a red line in legislature.

Oh, I didn't see that one.

There's one in your calendar invite.

So all of the documents pertaining this are in your calendar invite.

Okay.

That was my only question.

Thank you so much for that.

We have council member Sawyer followed by Councilmember Flynn.

Thanks, Madam President.

Um, thanks you guys for doing this.

I really appreciate it.

Uh it was very necessary, as you know, I believe we should just rip up the charter and rewrite the entire thing.

So big fan of this.

Uh but I do appreciate the your additional slide after our briefing about the companion ordinance.

Yeah, like just circle up with you on that to see like how was that going and is that how where you guys linked it?

Did that seem like it addressed a lot of the challenges that we talked about, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I think it was just a timing issue, and we were trying not to overburden John, who was at the time our only attorney.

Um, but I think we have since that time um worked on drafting it, met with um director Perez, Gracie, um, and we'll be kind of circulating it with our stakeholder partners before we get to committee on the 27th, 21st.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Okay.

I think so.

You all will see it as well before that date.

That is fantastic.

I really appreciate it.

I think that's just the the easiest and most straightforward way to ensure that everyone feels comfortable that the language that is coming out of the charter is going someplace, and then after that, it can be changed by you know a majority of city council.

The way every other law is, but um super appreciate that.

And we did talk to John, so thank you for your suggestion because that totally changed our trajectory.

So we appreciate you giving us that.

And I did talk with John.

It doesn't need a majority vote for city council because it's a charter.

Yeah, that was actually one follow-up question.

So there's a difference between a vote of an ordinance and a vote of an ordinance that is approved by the voters that is a super majority requirement.

So uh Jonathan Griffin Deputy Legislative Council, so this would not trigger the supermajority requirement because it's not submitted to the voters, it's passed in conjunction with the charter change.

Fantastic.

So just straight majority.

So some votes.

Awesome.

Yeah, so that answers your question too.

Awesome.

Thank you.

But then thank you for your help with that.

Councilmember Flynn, followed by Councilmember Flat.

Excuse me.

Thank you, uh Madam President.

Could you clarify who the Charter Review Committee is?

Because I saw that that's you had some meetings with them in 2025, but the council's charter review committee hasn't met in two years.

So is this another group?

Yeah, it was just the group that was convened to discuss these two sections of the charter.

It was never meant to be like an iteration of the council charter review committee.

So we had basically a um this group right here.

This was who was convened around the table to review these two sections of the charter.

Okay, so you just ad hoc call them, but correct.

Okay, confusing because I looked at our calendar and said they haven't been since we're no, no, correct.

That's I just wanted to clarify.

Okay.

Thanks.

Councilmember Hyde.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you for the uh briefing uh before and also for um for bringing this forward.

Um I reached out to uh firefighters local 858, didn't get a response.

I did also reach out to PPA who gave me uh a response.

Um, and it looks like that it's a letter that they sent to the two the sponsors and uh I just wanted to give you uh I met with them after that letter.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so are they amending the letter?

Are they probably because there's some inaccuracies in the letter if you look at the letter?

And so we they issued us the letter on a Monday, I think we it meant with them on Tuesday.

So we literally met with them the day after, and we pointed out some discrepancies that in the letter that are 100% inaccurate, no city worker can strike, no one can strike.

Um, and so they're actually once we get the companion ordinance done, we're gonna meet with them again, which can like highlights a lot of their concerns in there.

Um, so we're circling back again before committee with them.

Okay.

Uh that was gonna be my uh just to get your thoughts, but it sounds like um they're already.

Yeah, and to speak to I think one of the sections, um, we're removing the section that um um was about longevity pay.

Um that was what we had a lot of dialogue with both the fire union and the police union about.

Um, and John was really helpful.

Um since that section was put into charter, they have collective bargaining rights, and we are not changing the collective bargaining sections of the charter at all, which authorize them to bargain on longevity pay.

So the section that that we've got in these sections of the charter is basically irrelevant language because it is superseded by the collective bargaining language around longevity pay.

And if they don't want to bargain on longevity pay, they won't, otherwise they have to.

Um so uh that that is one of the things that it's not a backstop, it's not an effective safety net.

If something happens during collective bargaining, it just doesn't work like that.

So it really is just um old and outdated and useless language.

Um, and it really does refer to numbers from a long time ago.

They are paid much better in longevity pay than what the charter dictates.

So I don't even know that they would want that language as a backstop.

So all that to say that was one of the big back and forths.

We're not trying to change collective bargaining um for either of the the two safety departments.

Um I think there was um uh some overarching concern about us creating the companion ordinance, but that is in and of itself another legislative process and has to come through city council.

Um, and we're not changing um any of the standards in what we're moving over to ordinance at all, either.

Yeah, thank you for the for the explanation.

And while that's technically accurate, I think that's what you're touching on.

Is there would be the opportunity for city council to uh to review and potentially recommend changes and at that time?

I'm assuming we would reach out to PPA and 858 and uh you know any relevant union or you know, or um uh group of employees.

You know, so those not all of our safety employees are represented by a union, but just in case.

Um so anyway, so um when I first read the letter, I was like, huh.

Well, that's interesting, but um you know, with your explanation and perhaps there's some inaccuracies in the letter.

Um I think that's very helpful for me to um it's great context, so thank you.

You better thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Um next up we have Council Manavy Udis.

Thank you.

Um my questions is also around the authorized leave or uh my question is could or is currently losing your staff work authorization protected leave.

No, because you're not requesting I don't think that's an uh um an approved leave status um as far as police and fire.

I'd have to find out about how the sheriff's department because they operate under OHR rules, um, how they handle something like that.

Uh but it's for the ways that we have leave medical um uh military.

So those individuals would have to start their probation or you can see it all over again.

Yeah, but it this yeah, exactly.

Yeah, um, and it wasn't in legislator, just so you know, but I think I might have it any minute now.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so the pre the leave is for military service and it's it's defined by certain status.

So if you're um an army guard and you need to be pulled up into that, and you call get called to service, that's what that protective leaf is.

It's not necessarily protected leave meaning where it comes to um your status with you being a United States citizen or a DACA.

It's usually military service.

The other um helpful document, if you go back to the calendar invite, which does have the red line, it also has I don't have the calendar because I we didn't make the meeting, so it got off my calendar.

So it got off to get an email because there's another document that I think you find really helpful too, and it's the one pager.

Great.

And it's a one-pager that goes section by section what's changed and how it looks different often.

Yeah, yeah.

Awesome.

Next up we have Council Pro Temer Mirror Campbell.

There we go.

Thank you.

Um I don't really have a question, more just of a statement.

I appreciate the briefing um that you guys provided, but I also wanted to just thank you for doing this work.

Um I think it was just exceptional how um the length of time that you took to really be thorough about this.

Um, and then also how you presented it back um for the briefing.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

I think it's all very um a lot of good common sense in there for um the changes that need to be made.

Thank you.

So just a good job.

Um other council members in the queue.

See none.

Um if you have any questions, uh we have if you haven't had a briefing from us yet, feel free to reach out.

We have the created a one-pager which goes back and forth to all the places that we changed in the charter, the red line, and then once we get the ordinance, we'll probably circle back around and send it to you all.

It shouldn't be different than what's in the charter, right?

Because we're just pulling it out.

So if you have questions, I don't think we're gonna offer a briefing before committee because that's too fast because we have to get the August 3rd deadline to get this on the ballot.

Um, but if you do have questions, please feel free to reach out to Councilwoman Torres on behalf and our teams, and um hopefully we'll have more to come at committee from the two um unions.

And just want to say, Robin, thank you.

It was a pleasure to work with you.

It was amazing to learn through the equity lens and really have other agencies ground their work in an equity lens.

I don't think um several of them had done that before, so I appreciate you bringing that perspective and again to Ian and Melissa.

Um, we couldn't have done this without you all.

So thank you.

We'll see you um at safety.

Um at the end of the month.

All right, seeing no other further, I'll see you.

Oh, I just wanted to make one last minute announcement.

Um Councilmember Flynn, I'll say this on the floor, but Councilmember Flynn won't be with us tonight at council because he's going to um Lynn Bartelson's funeral.

And so I wish I could be there.

I'm really sad that I'm not gonna be there.

Um I feel really heartbroken and cried about it a lot, so I'm gonna let that go.

Um, but I'll make an announcement.

And Councilmember Flynn, thank you so much for going to represent City Council.

Um, it's here in a few hours, right during City Council.

And then for anyone who had an intern, we're saying something about them at the 3 30 session.

So if you could please have your intern in the city council chambers, we'd really like to acknowledge them as they're our DPS, it's their last week for interns.

Councilmember Flynn.

Well, that's I want to bring that up.

Yeah.

Anybody here not know?

It's impossible that you didn't know her.

She knew everybody.

I actually didn't know her.

I'm the political that didn't know her.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We stand after the case.