Denver Charter Amendment on Two-Year Budgets

Referred Question 2I keeps one fiscal year as Denver's default budget term and lets the City Council adopt a two-year term by ordinance. The council must file the ordinance by January 31 of the year before the term starts; the mayor may veto it, subject to override, and the council may repeal it at any time. The amendment requires no public vote on that ordinance. Each year's spending still needs an annual appropriation ordinance. The mayor's budget briefing and proposed budget are due earlier each year. The amendment takes effect on publication and filing with the Secretary of State. No tax, fee or borrowing comes with the change.

Before a two-year term, the mayor's briefing and proposed budget cover both years. The second year comes as a draft: the council includes it in the budget notice and public hearing, may amend it, and adopts it with the first-year budget, subject to revision and annual appropriation.

During the term's first year, the mayor proposes a final second-year budget stating the changes from the draft, including adjustments to comply with state law and the charter's balanced-budget section. The council publishes notice, holds a public briefing, may amend it, and adopts it. The second year's appropriation cannot exceed that final budget.

The amendment deletes the rule that every city agency send the mayor and council detailed spending and revenue estimates, built on work programs, by July 1. It repeals the charter's allotment section: the revised plans, work programs and allotments agencies file by December 15, the mayor's review that cannot change an agency's total, and the rule that the Manager of Finance allows spending only on approved allotments. The mayor's proposed budget must still show each agency's spending and work programs. The amendment also requires estimates of revenue from tax rates, fees and similar charges to use ordinances already enacted, except for the annual city mill-levy ordinance.

Revenue and opening balances above projections go to the general fund reserve instead of the contingency account. The charter already limits spending of that reserve to emergencies that two-thirds of the council approves within the year, and lets it count as income for the next year's budget. The minimum two percent contingency stays. Unspent, unencumbered appropriations still lapse at year-end. Capital project funds were already the exception; the amendment adds funds that their ordinance makes non-lapsing, which carry over until the projects or programs end or an ordinance rescinds the balance.

The council referred the question on a 10-2 vote, Denverite reports, and the mayor signed the bill on July 22, 2026. Cosponsor Shontel Lewis said a two-year cycle "will allow us to better evaluate how we are doing in any given budget cycle." Kevin Flynn, who opposed the referral, pointed out that the city already plans capital spending over several years and can sign multiyear contracts, and said "we can't even get a one-year budget right, let alone trying to project revenues for two years." Denverite reports that new public-input steps would come through companion legislation, not this question.