Where the money comes from, how it’s spent and possible solutions to the deficit.
Revenues:
•64 percent from taxes.
Of that revenue
•50 percent comes from sales and use taxes.
•8 percent from property tax.
•The rest from licenses/permits, fees, charges for services and fines.
Expenditures:
•Approximately 70 percent of city expenses are for personnel costs.
•City has 7,216 full-time employees, of which 3,106 are uniformed positions (police, fire and sheriff)
•Uniformed positions are covered by collective bargaining agreements. Non-uniform positions are covered by career service authority (no collective bargaining).
•The General Fund maintains reserves. The goal is to maintain 15 percent of expenditures in reserve. Currently, the level is 10.5 percent.
Issues with the budget:
A structural deficit between revenues and expenditures has been growing over the last decade. It is being caused by:
•A changing economy, spending habits and demographics that are causing revenues to grow at slower rates.
•Pressures on expenditures, such as health care costs, that prevent the reduction of ongoing costs without impacts on services.
Solutions that must be considered :
•Permanent increase to ongoing revenues or a permanent decrease to expenditures (or a combination of the two).
•A revenue source that grows at a reasonable rate and covers average expenditure growth.
City and county of Denver
This information box has been changed in this online archive to clarify Denver’s tax revenues. Denver
collects 64 percent of its revenues from taxes. Of that revenue, 50
percent comes from sales and use tax, 8 percent from property taxes
and the remainder from licenses/permits, fees, charges for services
and fines.
