Denver’s $950 million bond: Taxpayers deserve full accountability before another blank check

By Erik Clarke | Commentary, Westword

“Denver residents want to support good projects that improve our daily life and solve real problems. Taxpayers also want to know that their money is being managed responsibly.”

In 2017, Denver voters approved the $937 million Elevate Denver Bond Program to improve civic infrastructure across the city. Eight years later, while some projects have made meaningful progress, many remain delayed, over budget or not yet started. Now, the city is preparing to ask voters to approve another nearly billion dollars through the proposed Vibrant Denver package.

Before we’re asked to vote this November, we deserve more than summaries and categories. We deserve transparency. We deserve details.

As of today, there is no public cost breakdown for many of the 59 proposed projects in the bond. No explanation of how figures were determined. No access to the financial assumptions, cost modeling or contingency calculations behind the totals. For a bond package of this size, that’s a problem.

Taxpayers should not be asked to authorize nearly a billion dollars in new debt without seeing the documentation that supports it. If we’re serious about earning the public’s trust, the city should publish the workpapers used to build the budget for each proposed project.

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