The City and County of Denver released preliminary information on the total number of positions impacted by budget reductions.
Due to flattening city revenues driven by national economic uncertainty and rising costs, the city is facing a $200M budget shortfall for 2026. After identifying budget challenges nearly 18 months ago, Denver took the following steps:
- Slowed hiring in early 2024
- Reduced the size of government in the 2025 budget
- Froze hiring in 2025
Due to these efforts, the city was able to significantly minimize impact to employees and public services.
Because of those early adjustments, Denver announced only 171 layoffs, which represents 1.6% of the workforce. The city will eliminate a total of 928 positions from the city’s General Fund. These reductions will solve for $100M of our $200M budget gap for 2026.
The number of eliminated positions include:
| Number of Positions | Percentage of Impacted Workforce** | |
| Total filled positions eliminated/layoffs | 171 | 1.6% |
| Total vacant positions eliminated | 665 | 6% |
| Total transfers off the General Fund to other aligned funding sources | 92 | .8% |
| Total | 928 | 8.4% |
* As of Aug. 18, 2025
** Based on 11,023 positions. Does not include independent agencies, agencies of other elected officials, and agencies that are not funded through the General Fund.
Throughout this process, Executive Directors, the Department of Finance, and the Mayor’s Office have used the following guiding principles:
- Protect core city services
- Maintain focus on top city priorities
- Minimize impact to employees
A deficit of this size requires a structural reorganization to prevent this type of budget deficit in the future while continuing to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Since nearly 70% of the General Fund budget goes toward personnel costs, eliminating positions was necessary to meet the budget gap.
Impacted employees are being notified today and tomorrow. Employees will receive:
- 30 days of paid administrative leave
- 2 to 8 weeks of severance
- 60 days of healthcare coverage
- Outplacement services to help employees find jobs
The city will share additional information on personnel changes, including a department-by-department breakdown, later this week once all employees have been notified.
The Mayor will deliver the full 2026 budget on Sept. 15, 2025.
Source: Denver Mayor’s Office
