DONORS & LOCAL NEWS DONOR LIST WE LOVE OUR DONORS! When you support the Denver VOICE, you are helping support hundreds of homeless and impoverished individuals who are working to realize self-sufficiency through earning a dignified income. Your gift makes a world of difference for these individuals. Here, we list those who have given $500 and more in the last year. DENVERVOICE.ORG/DONATE $25,000+ Denver Foundation The NextFifty Initiative Help Colorado Now $10,000+ John & Laurie Mcwethy Charitable Fund Kenneth King Foundation Max & Elaine Appel DEDO Nonprofit Emergency Relief Fund The Christian Foundation $5,000 - $9,999 Anschutz Family Foundation Community Foundation of Boulder County Jerry Conover Meek-Cuneo Family Fund $1,000-$4,999 Josh Kauer Bright Funds Network for Good Matthew Seashore & Nikki Lawson Arc Thrift Stores Jeremy Anderson City Side Remodeling Matthew Rezek Schuster Family Foundation Russell Peterson PEN America Craig & Teresa Solomon Signs by Timorrow Jim Ashe Wynkoop Brewery George Lichter Family Foundation Walker Family Foundation The Sidney B. & Caleb F. Gates Jr. Fund Kauer Construction & Design Gaetanos Restaurant Patrick & Jan Rutty Conover/Wonder Family Fund Gaelina Tesfaye Donald Weaver Phoenix Capital $500-$999 Comedy Works Michelle Stapleton & James Thompson Michael Dino Christine Muldoon and Pete Iannuzzi Jill Haug Caring Connection Alistair Davidson Paul Manoogian Kroger Grocery Ridley McGreevy & Winocur Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, Inc. Keyrenter Property Management Denver Gaspar Terrana 10x Business Consultants, Inc. Travis & Margaret Ramp Elizabeth A. Mitchell Stephen Saul Leigh Bingham and Chris Forgham James Stegman William Thorland Betty & Warren Kuehner Zephyr Wilkins Celestina Pacheco ACM LLP Cuneo Law Firm Paul Hoffman Jim and Nancy Thomas Peggy Mihelich Susan B. Jones 10 DENVER VOICE December 2020 DENVER AIMS FOR ECONOMIC REBOUND BY DOUG HRDLICKA IN 2019, the Denver Department of Finance recognized signs in short-term and long-term bonds that indicated a recession. Other markers and inconsistencies also forecasted a bust, so the City planned a conservative 2020 budget for good measure. Indeed, February 2020 marked the end of the longest economic expansion in Denver’s history. In March, Denver saw the largest decline in projected revenues in a single period since 1933. The economic fallout has left Denver in a crisis, but a rebound is sure, and the City plans to come back with equity at the forefront. “The thing about trying to anticipate and react in February is a little difficult because you don’t really know that you’re in a recession until six months after you’re already in it,” said Director of the Office of Economic Development Eric Hiraga. “It’s something that we had closely monitored. Then COVID hit, and it was just the nail in the coffin,” Statewide restrictions pushed unemployment to 5.2 percent in March, and in April it more than doubled. “The US economy lost 22.2 million jobs in a two-month period. So, if you look at our statistics since April when we spiked at 13.4 percent, we’ve almost recovered half of that in September, at 7.4 percent,” said Hiraga. Denver lost $221 million in projected revenue. The City quickly reached out to all its departments and asked them to cut 3 percent from their budgets, then 7 percent, and is now asking for 10 percent going into 2021. City employees were asked to work from home and were given mandatory furlough days, with higher-paid employees taking more days. These are not sweeping cuts, though. The Department of Health and the Department of Housing and Urban Development need sustained or additional revenue to operate at the demand COVID has yielded. Also, some departments operate with 90 percent or more staff, and the City doesn’t want to add to the unemployment crisis. The first cuts did save on ancillary costs like utility and travel. But the City still needed to pull from its reserves and its Special Revenue Fund — a 2 percent contingency reserve for city emergencies — to cover some of the costs to operate and provide emergency services related to public health. A portion of that money was covered by FEMA as part of a reimbursement program. The money being reimbursed was used specifically for PPE gear and shelter initiatives. “Those federal dollars have allowed us to recoup money that the City has spent responding to the emergency, but they don’t allow for revenue replacement,” said City and County of Denver’s Chief Financial Officer Brendan Hanlon. But thinning government spending and using reserve funds is only a temporary solution. One of the biggest factors when planning for a rebound after a pandemic is curbing consumer behavior. “This is a public health crisis that has led to a reduction of public activity, and we’re just not sure how it’s going to rebound,” said Hanlon. The service industry has undoubtedly suffered the brunt of the pandemic, with shutdowns and restricted capacity immediately impacting businesses. But it is the consumer that will ultimately decide the longevity of that impact. “If we can give people that financial support to get them through this difficult time, including the expansion of unemployment benefits, it will help people get through this level of economic uncertainty,” said Hanlon. The last period of comparable economic strife was during the Great Recession of 2008. At the time, the approach to recovery was to build the economy first. But over the five years it took to boom, people were sidelined from the success as an unintended consequence. This time around, Mayor Hancock has in his arsenal the Division of Social Equity and Innovation to consult on how to cut the budget so people who live in the throes of economic strife aren’t further impacted. “You have to look at it in tandem, as a nexus. Both of these forces are interconnected, and if we tease those out, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Our economy is built to serve our people, and our people are part of our economy; they’re interconnected, and we have to make sure both of those things work,” said Kim Desmond, director of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation. Through conversations about equity for all marginalized people, the City has discovered that certain revenue streams like property tax and court costs disproportionately affect low-income groups. “When we look at different outcomes across all different areas, the goal is to make sure there is no racial or ethnic disparity in all the different systems that we see, like health, like education, and like housing,” said Desmond. The service industry suffers more, compared to the tech and financial industries, and a significant number of its employees are minorities. During the pandemic, these are the groups that have historically been most disadvantaged and are paying the price. “If you look at unemployment statistics, you will see that the hospitality sector, restaurants and hotels, the retail sector, and some of the other sectors where you see a disproportionate number of Black and Hispanic workers, are the vulnerable jobs that are being lost the most right now,” said Hiraga. In addition to the equity group, Denver applied to be part of a multi-city project headed by Bloomberg Philanthropies to assist in budgeting equitably. “Multiple cities are put together to share experiences around financial health and sustainability, but also how to bake equity into your financial decision-making process. That is in both how you spend your money and also the origins of revenue,” said Hanlon. The Bloomberg project has accepted 30 cities as participants. City leaders will meet to collaborate toward an economy that serves their entire populations. “What I’m looking forward to is pilfering good ideas. I think we’ve made a lot of strides here in Denver, especially this budget year,” said Hanlon. What happens next is unknown. A third wave of the pandemic could mean more shutdowns and additional economic strain. But a vaccine could put to rest this dark period. “From my side of the shop, I feel like it’s about trying to make sure we’re doing what we need to do financially to maintain core services in the city and making sure we have a quality of life here in Denver that people and businesses are attracted to,” said Hanlon. ■
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