The Denver Employees Retirement Plan is 59.97% funded. That is plan fiduciary net position as a percentage of total pension liability, GASB 68 basis, measurement date 31 December 2024, discounted at 7.00%. Total pension liability $4,052,116 thousand against a fiduciary net position of $2,430,156 thousand, and the City and County of Denver's proportionate share of the difference is $1,621,960 thousand. Call it $1.62 billion.
That is the worst funded ratio in this ten city study, and worse than any Colorado PERA division trust fund, including the two carrying nearly all of PERA's shortfall: State at 72.61% and School at 71.71% (GASB 67, measurement date 31 December 2025). This is not a state problem Denver inherited. DERP is Denver's own plan for its own career service employees, and Denver is 92.58% of it. The rest belongs to Denver Health and Hospital Authority. Against the 740,613 population the city's FY2025 ACFR prints, that is roughly $2,190 a resident.
What Denver pays in
The city contributed $161,613,000 to DERP for the year ended 31 December 2025, exactly the statutorily required amount. The funding policy is 17.95% of covered payroll from the city and 8.45% pre-tax from employees, under Revised Municipal Code section 18-407.
For scale, that contribution is larger than the entire 2026 General Fund appropriation for the Denver Fire Department, $158,081,466. One is an actual contribution across all funds for a completed year, the other a single-fund appropriation for the year ahead. Not the same kind of number. The same taxpayer.
It is not flat either. The ACFR's ten-year schedule runs $64,345 thousand in 2016 to $161,613 thousand in 2025, roughly 2.5 times in nine years, while covered payroll grew about 1.6 times, to $929,428 thousand. Contributions outran the payroll they are levied on and the ratio still sits below 60%.
The general fund is going the other way
General Fund total appropriations, calendar fiscal year:
| Year | General Fund | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $1,773,899 thousand | actual |
| 2025 | $1,727,048 thousand | estimated |
| 2026 | $1,663,080 thousand | mayor's final budget |
Down 6.2% across two years. The 2026 figure ties to Annual Appropriation Ordinance CB25-1813, which prints total uses of financial resources of $1,663,079,510. A labelling note that matters: council voted the 2026 budget down in November 2025 and the mayor's plan then governed by default, so this is the mayor's final budget, not a council-adopted one.
It closed a gap the city puts at approximately $200 million between anticipated revenue and normal growth in expenditures: $77 million from services, supplies and transfers, $118 million of personnel savings, $5.7 million of revenue additions. General Fund headcount fell by 957 FTE, about 80% of that vacancies, transfers to another funding source, or reduced on-call staff. Across all funds, personnel fell by 982 positions to 13,914 FTE.
Police and fire rose while the fund fell
General Fund appropriations for 2026: police $280,421,884, fire $158,081,466, both confirmed line items in the appropriation ordinance. Combined, $438,503,350.
| Year | Police + fire, General Fund | Share of General Fund total appropriations |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 actual | $428,433,060 | 24.15% |
| 2025 estimated | $431,142,355 | 24.96% |
| 2026 mayor's final budget | $438,503,350 | 26.37% |
Police and fire dollars rose 1.7% over two years. Their share rose 2.2 points. It moved because the denominator fell, not because spending surged. General Fund police uniform FTE held flat at 1,507.00 across all three years while fire uniform FTE went 967.00 to 959.00. Uniformed police were protected. Firefighter positions were not.
That combined share is derived, not printed, and the denominator moves it: against General Fund total operations of $1,569,207,798 rather than total appropriations, the same $438.5 million is 27.9%.
Why 26.4% is not a compliment
Denver is a consolidated city and county. Its General Fund also carries the jail, the courts, the district attorney, human services and public health, functions that in a plain city sit with a separate county on a separate levy. The 26.4% looks low against Boise or Twin Falls because the denominator is larger in kind, not because Denver polices more cheaply.
The city's own numbers make the point. The Department of Public Safety umbrella, which adds the sheriff at $174,253,830, 911 emergency communications at $5,182,523, community corrections and mental health programmes, totals $646,480,236 in the General Fund for 2026, or 41.2% of General Fund total operations. Same city, same year, a different answer depending on where the line falls.
The police and fire pensions are a separate machine, and 2026 is when it slips
Denver's sworn police and firefighters are not in DERP. They sit with the Fire and Police Pension Association of Colorado, across three plans: the statewide retirement plan for anyone hired on or after 8 April 1978, plus the closed Denver Old Hire Fire and Old Hire Police funds for those hired before it. They participate in lieu of Social Security. Senate Bill 13-234 paid off the state's share of the old-hire unfunded liability, and from 2014 those plans became the city's sole obligation.
At the same 31 December 2024 measurement date the FPPA statewide plan was 100.00% funded, net pension liability zero. The old hire funds were not. Old Hire Fire: 67.44% funded, liability $132,711,000. Old Hire Police: 79.13% funded, liability $131,152,000, down for three straight reported years from 94.00%. Both have zero active members and both pay out far more than they take in.
Denver pays these bills from two dedicated property tax mills, fire pension 0.994 and police pension 1.185, held in a special revenue fund. The 2026 forecast is the first where the mills do not cover it: projected expenditures $63,914,154 against projected revenue of $58,001,099, a $5,913,055 drawdown on a fund balance of $20.9 million at the end of 2024. The budget book says it plainly, that expenditures are currently projected to exceed revenue.
The city also contributed $28,568,000 to the FPPA statewide plan in 2025 against a statutorily required $32,364,000, a deficiency of $3,796,000 following $2,920,000 in 2024. The employer rate is legislated to climb half a point a year to 13.00% by 2030. Employees already pay 12.00%, more than the employer.
The tax base underneath all of it
Per the FY2025 ACFR statistical schedule, city and county direct property tax rates total 26.328 mills, of which those two pension mills are 2.179. The full bill a Denver owner sees is 79.602 mills, because Denver School District No. 1 levies 52.274 and Urban Drainage and Flood Control 1.000. The city takes about a third. And the base shrank: total taxable assessed value fell from $27,061,848 thousand to $26,045,588 thousand between the 2024 and 2025 columns of that same schedule, down 3.8% on state assessment rate cuts.
A pension plan below 60% funded, a general fund down 6.2% in two years, an assessed base down 3.8%, and a dedicated pension levy that stops covering its own bill in 2026. Four documents, one direction.
Fact-check notes and sources
- Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, City and County of Denver, Colorado, Year Ending 2025: the DERP funded ratio and liability, the 2025 employer contributions, the FPPA statewide and both old hire plans, mill levies, assessed values and population. Every pension ratio here carries a 31 December 2024 measurement date.
- Vintage warning, stated by the ACFR itself: each pension required supplementary information schedule is determined as of the city's measurement date, 31 December of the year prior to the fiscal year, so the row labelled December 31, 2025 describes 31 December 2024. The paired contribution schedules are as of the fiscal year end.
- 2026 Mayor's Budget, City and County of Denver, FINAL, including Annual Appropriation Ordinance CB25-1813, Series of 2025: General Fund totals, police and fire appropriations, the Public Safety total, FTE counts, the $200 million gap and the pension fund forecast. Council rejected the 2026 budget in November 2025 and the mayor's plan governed by default, so this is not a council-adopted figure.
- Bases: 2024 figures are actuals; 2025 General Fund is the estimated column in the 2026 budget book, not the 2025 adopted appropriation, which the same book states separately as $1.789 billion; 2026 figures are appropriations. The combined police plus fire share and the per-resident liability are derived, not printed.
- DERP's own 59.7%, from the DERP Annual Comprehensive Financial Report 2023 at a 1 January 2023 valuation, is an actuarial value of assets measure at a different date. It does not corroborate the 59.97%.
- The budget book contradicts itself on the all-funds total ($4.4 billion in the narrative against $5.41 billion net in Exhibit 2) and prints three different 2025 General Fund appropriations. Hence the basis on every figure above.
Related reading
- Colorado and Idaho state budgets: the state-level comparison this city study sits inside.
- Ten cities and what public safety costs: the full comparison, with the denominator warnings that make Denver's 26.4% readable.
- Colorado and Idaho pensions, side by side: funded ratios, discount rates and liabilities in one chart.
- The budget squeeze, visualised: what happens when fixed costs rise and the base does not.
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.
