Denver’s Office of Children’s Affairs took the biggest relative hit to its workforce — with about a third of employees losing their jobs — during a round of layoffs and restructuring carried out by city officials this week, according to breakdowns released Wednesday.
Mayor Mike Johnston presented a table with details on the layoffs across departments and agencies during an online town hall with all city employees in the morning, and later to reporters during a media briefing. Workers affected by the layoffs had been informed on Monday and Tuesday.
“Our layoff wave is over,” Johnston said during the employee meeting. “That is complete.”
The job cuts and restructuring come as Johnston’s administration addresses an anticipated $200 million shortfall in the 2026 budget. Johnston announced in May that he would implement layoffs.
This week, his administration told 169 people their jobs had been eliminated. Officials also eliminated another 667 vacant positions, a number that had grown through more than a year of hiring freezes and restrictions. Together, the figures represent a nearly 8% reduction in the city’s authorized workforce of 11,023 positions.
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The figures changed slightly since Monday — when the number of layoffs was announced as 171 — after some eliminated positions were recategorized, including one person who resigned instead of being laid off, said Chief Financial Officer Nicole Doheny.
“If you’re heavy on people and low on vacancies, you end up needing to be higher on layoffs,” Johnston said during the media briefing, noting that vacant positions resulted in lower impact on employees.
The layoffs were the first major job cuts in Denver city government since 2011. For the first time, city officials were able to consider some merit-based factors when deciding whom to lay off, rather than only seniority, after the Career Service Board approved that change this summer.
Johnston on Wednesday provided a breakdown of how long the people who were laid off had worked for the city. About 78% of the laid-off employees had fewer than 10 years of seniority. Nearly 12% had been with the city for 15 years or longer.
Wednesday’s department-by-department breakdown of the impacts showed that some positions were moved out of the general fund to different funding sources but were not eliminated — 92 jobs in total.
The , which had 31 positions, saw 10 employees laid off and two vacant positions eliminated. That represents about a 39% total reduction in the office.
Johnston said his administration would reduce the scope of the office to focus on three elements of its core mission, to support early childhood education, after-school programming and youth development. Other efforts, like its Tasty Food initiative, which provides free meals to young people, and youth violence prevention were moved under other agencies.
“Instead of continuing trying to do more and more with less, let’s do less and do it better,” Johnston said.
The next-biggest hit by percentage went to , which had nearly 38% of its 45 positions affected through nine layoffs and eight vacant positions cut.
Third was , which had five layoffs and 22 vacant positions eliminated, representing a 28% reduction. The human rights and climate action offices, along with the heavily hit Office of Social Equity and Innovation, were also set to be restructured in the wake of the cuts.
The personnel cuts will generate savings of about $100 million, or about half of next year’s expected budget shortfall, officials said. The rest of the savings will come from contracts, services and supplies, Johnston said.
Those decisions will be made in the coming weeks as his administration prepares a budget proposal for 2026. They must present it to the City Council by Sept. 15.
“There are places where we will eliminate function within departments, where we will streamline or reduce them. There will be places where we will have impacts on resident-based services,” he said.
Johnston said that as long as the economy doesn’t dip into a full recession next year, the city won’t require more furloughs or layoffs in 2026. If the Trump Administration cuts more federal funding for the city, however, that could impact services and grant-funded positions.
The smallest relative reductions were for the Denver Fire and Police departments, where uniformed personnel were insulated from cuts. Both saw a less than 2% decrease in positions, all through vacancies eliminated.
The mayor’s office laid off three employees and cut eight vacant positions, for a total reduction of 24% of its approved positions.
The highest number of layoffs of any department or agency in the breakdown occurred in one of the largest — the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, which laid off 31 employees. DOTI also eliminated 108 vacant positions, with all the cuts representing 9% of its 1,562 positions.
Some elected officials, including Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore and Clerk and Recorder Paul López, accused the mayor this week of using the layoffs to target certain individuals. Gilmore’s husband, Scott Gilmore, was laid off from his management position within Denver Parks and Recreation after 13 years in the department.
Gilmore said her husband was let go because of her criticisms of the mayor. Lopez called the layoffs a “deliberate, hand-selected purge.”
Johnston responded to those allegations Wednesday.
“I think itap irresponsible and factually false,” he said. “When we make these decisions, we don’t base them on who you know or who you’re married to. We base them on the merits of the (layoff) tool and your aptitude for the position and our capacity to support it.”
