Denver wants a formula for its department heads' pay. Here's what's proposed
City HR is asking the Council to tie appointed directors' raises to inflation or employee pay every four years, plus a one-time market adjustment in 2027. A committee hears it Monday.
Every few years, the Council has to vote on what Denver pays the people who run its biggest departments, from the airport to the parks. The city's human resources office wants to change how those numbers are set. Its "Proposal for Executive Director Salaries," Council record 26-1612, is on the Budget and Policy Committee's agenda for Monday, Oct. 26 (agenda).
Why residents should care: these are some of the city's highest salaries, they come up in the middle of a tight budget year, and the last round drew pushback.
What's proposed
The presentation from Office of Human Resources Executive Director Kathy Nesbitt covers 12 "appointed charter officers." They include the managers of Aviation, Finance, General Services, Human Services, Parks and Recreation, Safety, Transportation and Infrastructure, Community Planning and Development, Environmental Health, and Human Rights and Community Partnerships, plus the City Attorney and the Director of Excise and Licenses.
The city charter says their pay is set by Council ordinance and should be reviewed against similar jobs in other cities, the slides note. The proposal has two parts:
- A formula, every four years. Pay would rise by the lower of two numbers over the prior four years: the change in the Denver-area Consumer Price Index, or the change in the average salary of Career Service employees. The slides say this mirrors the way elected officials' pay is set.
- A one-time "true-up." A market adjustment based on a 2026 HR salary survey, effective Jan. 1, 2027. The slides do not list dollar amounts.
The slides' timeline: Budget and Policy on Nov. 2, Governance Committee on Nov. 17, Mayor-Council on Nov. 23, then first and second readings at Council in the first two weeks of December.
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The last round
In May 2025, a Council committee advanced raises for about a dozen of these appointees, some of 30% to 40%, CBS Colorado reported. Examples included a 17.2% raise for the airport's manager and 43.6% for the manager of finance. Administration officials said the appointees had not had raises since 2022. Council member Amanda Sawyer told CBS, "We have to pay our people fairly," while Council member Flor Alvidrez said she weighed those salaries against cuts to janitors' schedules.
What our records add
One salary ordinance from that period is in our records. Council Bill 25-0592, setting the salary of the Manager of Human Rights and Community Partnerships, passed 13-0 on June 2, 2025 (video at 48:23). It is the only appointee salary ordinance from that round in our records, so we could not confirm the final Council action on every raise CBS described.
Elected officials' pay has its own track. In 2024, Sawyer sponsored 24-0347, an ordinance setting elected officials' salaries tied to a charter change on how those raises are decided. It passed 11-0 with two absent.
The budget context. The 2027 budget, 26-1547, has its public hearing Monday night. The Council's requests for more staff were largely declined, as we reported in Johnston said no to most of the Council's budget asks.
What's next
- Monday, Oct. 26, 1:30 p.m.: Budget and Policy Committee presentation (agenda).
- December: If the timeline holds, two Council votes on the salary ordinance.
You can follow it on the matter page.