On April 14, the Denver City Council released the budget priorities for 2016 in a press release. According to the release, the three priorities for 2016 are transit infrastructure and safety, increased staffing and equipment for the Department of Safety and a sustainable funding commitment for mixed income, city-wide affordable housing.

“These priorities reflect the Council’s commitment to making sure Denver is a safe, accessible city for our residents and visitors alike,” said Christopher Herndon, Denver City Council President in a press release. “The issues we prioritized impact folks across the city on a daily basis.”

The Denver City Council works on Budget Priorities every year just as budget planning for the next fiscal year begins.
“We do an annual budget retreat right around this time as department agencies start working on their budget for the next fiscal year,” said Herndon.

According to the release, the annual meeting allows for the Council to determine areas of priority. The priorities are then set before the budgeting process so money for the next year may be budgeted toward areas supported by the Council.

“This year is a little bit different because we have at least six new members of council that will be sworn in this July, and so we took a little bit of a different process [in determining the priorities],” said Herndon. “I had each council member submit one budget priority and we did that and we had Bill Fulton, who is a facilitator with the Civic Canopy, talk to us [which was] a good way for us to have conversations and go from thirteen individual Council priorities to three primary ones.”

Seven of the thirteen priorities were related to transit, making transit the number one priority for 2016, said the press release. With transit being the number one priority, DU students could find it easier to get around town with improvements throughout Denver’s transit system.

“I think it’ll [RTD funding] be helpful probably in that it will help expand public transportation, which I know as a student I use a lot,” said Anika Cook, a fourth year student at DU.

As stated in the press release, the council prioritizes three areas and has hopeful outcomes for each of them.

The transit infrastructure and safety priority focuses on accelerating the implementation of Denver Moves, enhancing the potential of RTD and funding infrastructure that supports walkability and bikeability city-wide.

In order to tackle safety issues, the Council aims to increase staffing in the Denver Police, Fire and Sheriff Departments.
To continue providing affordable housing, the Council wants to dedicate funds to affordable housing as well as follow priorities outlined in the “Housing Denver” plan.

The Council plans to meet again after the new members are sworn in.

“When the new council members are sworn in in July, we plan to reconvene again as a new council to ensure that priorities haven’t changed,” said Hernon.