As city of Denver employees brace for the layoffs the mayor ordered to help plug a $250 million budget deficit over the next 18 months, the Johnston administration has not divulged much information about the number or which departments will be affected most.

On Monday afternoon, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s office released preliminary information on the total number of positions affected by budget reductions. 

City officials have blamed flattening city revenues driven — they said — by national economic uncertainty and rising costs for much of Denver’s fiscal woes. They argued that, with early action to slow hiring in 2024, reduce the size of government in the 2025 budget and freeze hiring this year, the city managed to minimize the impact to employees and public services significantly.

Because of those early adjustments, the layoffs will only affect “171 employees, which represents 1.6% of the workforce,” city officials said. 

The city said it will eliminate a total of 928 positions funded by the city’s General Fund and will “solve $100 million of our $200 million budget gap for 2026.”

City officials said 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.”

Approximately 70% of the city’s General Fund budget is earmarked for personnel costs, and eliminating positions is “necessary” to meet the budget gap, the administration said. 

“It is a really hard day as an elected official, and especially for those 171 city employees who were laid off,” said Stacie Gilmore, the councilmember representing District 11.

On Monday, Gilmore’s husband, Scott Gilmore, was laid off — a move she described as “targeted.” 

“It is ageism,” Gilmore said. “He is a 61-year-old man who only wanted to serve out the last four years of his time until he was 65, and because of his sassy, loud-mouthed wife, he got let go.”

Employees affected by the layoffs will be notified today and tomorrow, the city said. They will receive 30 days of paid administrative leave, two-to-eight weeks of severance, 60 days of healthcare coverage, and job assistance services.

Some members of the City Council have complained that they were left in the dark and they said what is happening remains unclear.

“I don’t know anything,” District 8 Councilmember Shontel Lewis told Denver Gazette news partner 9NEWS before Johnston’s Monday afternoon press release. “Councilmembers don’t know anything. And I think as councilmembers, we are duly elected. I think the mayor has a responsibility to give us something. And to treat us as the professionals and electeds that we are.”

“As a councilwoman,” Lewis said in her most recent community newsletter, “I do not have enough information to know if the layoffs undercut our defined goals, as we have not been briefed by the administration on how layoffs will be decided.”

The layoffs, according to Lewis, will likely lead to disruptions in critical city services.

“City services such as public transportation, sanitation, street services, and planning will be significantly strained during the layoff,” she said in a message to constituents on Monday. “With fewer employees, these departments will struggle to maintain the same level of service, leading to delays in public transportation, reduced street cleaning, slower response times for repairs, and longer processing times for permits and planning applications.”

“To the city workers, I’m sorry that we couldn’t do more,” said District 7 Councilmember Flor Alvidrez. “I’m sorry that the city council didn’t get a vote on this, and that we didn’t get our voices heard, either.” 

In an email to all city employees last month, Johnston said layoff notifications would be made over a one-week period, beginning on Aug. 18.

“As is common practice with many organizations,” Johnston wrote in the email provided to The Denver Gazette, “the employee’s last working day will be the same day as they are notified, unless an exception is made.”

Johnston has drawn the ire of local unions, who accused him of “changing the rules” before the city’s voter-approved collective bargaining can begin.

“Mayor Johnston is asking city workers to sign away their legal rights in exchange for insufficient severance, while offering services they already have access to,” activist Lisa Calderón, who ran against Johnston in the mayoral race, told The Denver Gazette. “That’s not support — it’s coercion. These layoffs, timed just before collective bargaining rights take effect, are a deliberate attempt to weaken worker protections.”

In pushing for changes to layoffs procedures, a source familiar with Johnston’s thinking said he is taking on entrenched interests that have often discounted skills and abilities that could make government more efficient. The city government should encourage the kind of innovations permeating the private sector, and keeping a seniority-based system could stifle that aspiration, said the source, who earlier spoke on condition of anonymity in order to freely share thoughts with The Denver Gazette. 

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 administration said. 

Johnston is expected to deliver his full 2026 budget proposal to the City Council on Sept. 15, 2025.

Denver Gazette news partner 9News contributed to this story.