Scoop: Denver releases new layoff details after legal pressure
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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, center, leaves his office inside the Denver City and County Building. Photo: RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
After five months of withholding details about last August's layoffs, the Johnston administration reversed course — but only after legal threats.
Why it matters: Newly released records, obtained and reported first by Axios Denver, reveal which city employees were cut, from which agencies and how much institutional experience was lost, presenting the clearest view yet of potential impacts on city services and people's lives.
Flashback: Mayor Mike Johnston laid off about 160 city employees last summer and eliminated 665 vacant positions as part of a broader effort to close a major budget gap.
- His office initially released only anonymized summaries and declined to provide names or agency-level job details, citing employee privacy.
Behind the scenes: That stance held for months — until Axios Denver, the Denver Post and Westword, with the help of a pro bono attorney, warned they were prepared to sue the city under the Colorado Open Records Act.
- This month, the city backed down and released the full list.
The latest: The list provided to Axios Denver identifies 159 laid-off employees, along with their agencies, job titles and years of service.
- The records show the city lost veteran staff in agencies that residents rely on, including transportation, planning and public health.
Stunning stat: The layoffs erased 1,158 years of combined city experience, an Axios Denver analysis found.
Zoom in: The city's transportation agency took the biggest hit, with 265 years of experience cut across 30 employees, including engineers and supervisors responsible for roads, traffic and capital projects.
- The planning and development department lost 128 years, impacting gatekeepers for housing and development approvals.
- The children's affairs agency is now down 112 years. That's a striking figure for a relatively small office, driven by layoffs of long-tenured managers — including one with 35 years of service.
Between the lines: The city determined layoffs using a "ranking tool" that scores employees on skills, abilities, performance and years of service — with tenure weighted at 25% across all departments.
Threat level: By targeting agencies that handle permitting, infrastructure, public health and children's services, the layoffs could slow approvals, strain oversight and weaken service delivery as Denver grapples with growth, housing pressure and rising development demand.
What we're watching: Those losses could complicate the mayor's newly outlined 2026 goals, which include adding thousands of affordable housing units and expanding daycare and extracurricular opportunities for kids.
- The cuts could also make it harder to oversee and execute Johnston's nearly $1 billion bond-funded infrastructure program, though he told Axios Denver in November that he's "very confident about our capacity to deliver."