Aurora, Colorado does not have a public safety share that is climbing. It has one that arrived. In 2023 actual spending, police and fire were 58.30% of what the city's General Fund spent on operations. In the 2026 adopted budget they are 58.84%. The share moved half a point in three years, because there was almost nowhere left for it to go.
That is a harder problem than a rising share, not an easier one. A city whose public safety line is climbing through the forties still has a decade of arithmetic ahead of it. A city already at 58% has spent that decade.
The number that circulates, and why it is wrong
A different set of figures gets repeated about Aurora: that police and fire took 83.9% of General Fund growth, and that their share climbed from 45.71% to 49.40%. Both reproduce exactly against the city's own budget book. Both are misleading, and the reason is the denominator.
Aurora's General Fund expenditure total includes transfers out to other funds, and police and fire make essentially no transfers out. So the 83.9% divides an operating numerator by an operating-plus-transfers denominator, and those transfers fell hard: $107,394,074 in 2023 actual to $88,359,885 in the 2026 adopted budget, down $19,034,189. It is the ordinance-formula transfer to the Capital Projects Fund, which shrank because capital-related use tax receipts fell with the housing slowdown. Roughly 85% of the apparent share shift is that falling denominator, not police and fire crowding anything out.
| Measure, 2023 actual to 2026 adopted, General Fund | 2023 actual | 2026 adopted | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Police and fire appropriations | $227,308,943 | $271,941,596 | +$44,632,653 (+19.6%) |
| Operating spending before transfers out | $389,897,732 | $462,137,322 | +$72,239,590 (+18.5%) |
| Transfers out to other funds | $107,394,074 | $88,359,885 | down $19,034,189 |
| Total General Fund uses | $497,291,791 | $550,497,207 | +$53,205,416 (+10.7%) |
| Police and fire share of operating spending | 58.30% | 58.84% | +0.54 points |
| Police and fire share of total uses | 45.71% | 49.40% | +3.69 points |
On the operating basis, police and fire took 61.8% of the growth ($44,632,653 of $72,239,590). Every other department combined took $27,606,937. That is a real concentration and it needs no help from a shrinking transfer line. The increase itself is not in dispute on any basis: police General Fund appropriations went from $144,401,416 (2023 actual) to $171,113,744 (2026 adopted), up 18.5%, and fire from $82,907,527 to $100,827,852, up 21.6%.
Two things inside those figures that a reader would not guess
Aurora911 left the General Fund. Emergency communications fell from $9,127,086 to $7,810,001 in the General Fund because all its departmental staff moved to the Enhanced E-911 Fund, alongside a $1.5 million cut to the General Fund subsidy. Its 2026 adopted all-funds appropriation is $18,325,511. A public safety cost left the fund, which mechanically raises the police and fire share without anyone deciding anything about police or fire.
Part of the fire increase is a failed federal grant. The proposed budget carried 34.0 new firefighter FTE for Stations 18 and 19, funded through a federal SAFER grant. The grant was not awarded. The $2,534,317 Gifts and Grants appropriation and its offsetting revenue were reversed in full, and the adopted budget carries 17.0 FTE against a post-proposed General Fund appropriation of $3,877,137, taking fire's budgeted Civil Service FTE from 461.00 to 478.00. Some of "fire spending grew 21.6%" is a funding source moving onto the city, not a service expanding.
The endpoints also differ in kind: 2023 is actual spending, 2026 is an adopted appropriation, and the book has no 2023 original column to fix it with. Other endpoints in the same table give capture rates of 79.7%, 156.9% and 52.0%. A capture rate quoted without its two columns is a guess.
The budget was short before any of this
Aurora identified an approximately $21.2 million General Fund shortfall for 2026 and closed it with $10,205,516 of budget cuts, $1,789,833 of new revenue and transfers, and $9,158,526 drawn from the General Fund recession reserve. The cuts include four citywide furlough days, from which sworn public safety is largely exempt. Total all-funds appropriations for 2026 are $1,343,410,297, against a 2025 original all-funds budget of $1,425,463,256. The city budgets 3,546.0 FTE, including 748.00 sworn police and 478.00 sworn fire, for a population of 414,283 (2025 estimate).
The pension structure is stranger than the headline
A common assumption about Colorado cities is that sworn police and fire sit in the statewide Fire and Police Pension Association plan. In Aurora, half of that is false. Aurora's sworn police are not in the FPPA statewide defined benefit plan. The 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report lists ten Aurora retirement plans, six defined benefit and four defined contribution. Police officers hired on or after 8 April 1978 go into the city's own Police Money Purchase Pension Plan, a defined contribution plan: the city contributes 12.0% of pay and put in $7,550,237 in 2024 across 971 members. Only fire has a live statewide FPPA defined benefit relationship, through the Statewide Retirement Plan, which took $4,601,959 from the city in 2024.
| Plan | Who is in it | Funded ratio | Net pension liability |
|---|---|---|---|
| FPPA Statewide Retirement Plan | sworn fire | 100.00% | $0 |
| GERP (general employees) | most non-sworn staff | 88.22% | $81,954,162 |
| Old Hire Police (closed) | police hired before 8 April 1978 | 58.44% | $60,523,153 |
| Old Hire Fire (closed) | fire hired before 8 April 1978 | 56.63% | $48,735,676 |
All four ratios are GASB 68 figures on a market value of assets basis with a measurement date of 31 December 2023, reported in the FY2024 ACFR under column headings that read 2024. Across all six defined benefit plans the total net pension liability is $191,212,991. Total OPEB liability, which is retiree health care held pay-as-you-go with no trust, is $20,262,694, down from $22,571,458.
The two worst-funded plans are the two that are closed. Old Hire Police and Old Hire Fire have no active members, 264 retirees between them, and roughly $109.3 million of combined unfunded liability. That is a finite bill on a shrinking population, not an open plan drifting away from the city. Colorado closed those plans statewide to anyone hired after 8 April 1978, and the state made its final old hire payment in 2013.
The one to watch is GERP, and it is the boring one. City Code fixes the employer contribution rate at 7.00% of covered payroll, while Milliman's employer portion of the actuarially determined rate is 9.14% at the 1 January 2025 valuation, up from 6.71%. The determined rate has crossed above the code rate, and GERP's funded ratio on an actuarial value basis fell from 92.2% at 1 January 2024 to 86.3% at 1 January 2025.
Fact-check notes and sources
- City of Aurora, Colorado, 2026 Operating and Capital Improvement Budget (Adopted), 636 pages. Attachment 5, "General Fund Expenditures", book page B-20, gives the department series for 2023 actual through 2026 adopted; all 22 rows sum to the printed total to the dollar in all five columns. The "General Fund Summary", book page G-4, gives the split between operating spending before transfers out and transfers out, which is what the 58.30% and 58.84% shares are computed on. Every share and capture rate here is derived from printed figures, not printed by the city.
- 2026 is adopted, not proposed. The adopted General Fund is about $1.2 million above the proposed figure after 4 October 2025 council workshop adjustments. Ordinances 2025-95, 2025-96 and 2025-97 passed first reading unanimously and were scheduled for finalisation on 3 November 2025; the minutes confirming final passage were not retrieved. The book is also internally inconsistent by $15 on the 2023 General Fund total, which is immaterial to every percentage above.
- City of Aurora 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Note 12 "Pension Plans" plus the RSI schedules, for all pension and OPEB figures. Every ratio carries a 31 December 2023 measurement date, two years behind the budget; the FY2025 ACFR was not published as of 9 August 2026. The GERP note table and the RSI schedule disagree by exactly twice the year's benefit payments; the RSI figures are correct and match Milliman.
- Milliman GERP actuarial valuation, 1 January 2025, for the 86.3% actuarial value funded ratio and the 9.14% determined employer rate. GERP has three defensible funded ratios at once (88.22% market at 12/31/2023, 87.9% market at 1/1/2025, 86.3% actuarial at 1/1/2025), so state the date and the asset basis every time.
- Not published, so not stated here: citywide employee medical insurance cost, the cost of the 2025-2026 police and fire collective bargaining agreements, filled sworn headcount as opposed to the 748.00 and 478.00 budgeted positions, and funding-basis ratios for the Old Hire plans. Last trap: Aurora, Illinois runs a General Fund of roughly $250 million and will corrupt any search result.
Related reading
- Colorado and Idaho state budgets: the same denominator problem at state level, with Medicaid instead of public safety.
- Ten city budgets, public safety measured the same way: where Aurora sits against Denver, Boise, Parker and six others, and why the shares are not a ranking.
- Colorado and Idaho pensions: funded ratios, discount rates, and what the assumptions do to them.
- The budget squeeze, visualised: growth capture and share shift across both states.
This post is informational, not legal, financial or municipal advisory advice. Budget figures are appropriations as adopted or proposed and change through the year. Mentions of named municipalities, districts and retirement systems are nominative fair use. No affiliation is implied.
