Background notes on Denver - Othering the blame game – so that others pick up the tab? – borrow, borrow, spend spend, tax. Tax – why does Denver require three times the city workers as Fresno?
Yesterday I posted an article where one of the victims of “open borders” revealed the massive burden placed on the city finances by the influx of 40,000 criminal immigrants into Denver AND, just as importantly, the impact on the poor, sick and elderly of Denver.
Although what follows relates to Denver the deleterious impacts on cities around the IS are similar. There have been around 6 million recorded illegal immigrants allowed into the US ad probably another few unregistered “getaways” – maybe a few dozen cities have a similar burden as Denver, though percentage wise, it bears one of the heaviest costs.
Recall that the direct costs – just for food and housing – were around 576 million bucks a year for the 40,000 criminal immigrants.
There are those out there - along with the likes of Paul Krugman – who think that paying someone to dig a hole and fill it in, whilst getting the money to pay them by borrowing at the fed, state or local level – then raising taxes to pay for the debt interest is - somehow. -a measure of success.
This article is not intended for those people. These same people consider criminal immigrants to be fully qualified on a par with, or a higher quality than, Americans AND willing to do what Americans can’t or won’t do.
These sorts of people will come up with all sorts of obfuscations for what is a de facto modern version of the slave trade or Indentured servitude.
Opening context – 40,000 criminal immigrants and from here
City of Denver Salaries (govsalaries.com)
a city of around 700,000 that employs 15,500 people to run it - with these salary characteristics:
Highest City of Denver employee salary in year 2023 was $372,646.
Number of employees at City of Denver in year 2023 was 15,483.
Average annual salary was $75,158 and median salary was $72,524.
According to the last payroll, City of Denver average salary is 1 percent higher than USA average and 47 percent higher than Colorado state average.
City of Denver employee salaries are usually between $32,645 and $111,447. Top 10% of highest-earning employees have salaries ranging from $142,359 to $372,646.
15,483 people at ab average of 75,158 = 1.16 billion bucks a year, plus pensions, vacations and sickness benefits. The city just passed a budget pf 4 billion bucks. Staff salaries are around 1,660 per capita. - overall, the city costs around 5,700 bucks per capita.
Out of interest, Fresno, California has 3,000 full time employees and 1,800 part time employees for its 545,000 residents with an overall median salary of 85,000 and a cost of 800 bucks per resident.
Makes you wonder how the Denver city employees are costing twice as much as Fresno’s per resident. .no?
Summary for Fresno (2022) | Transparent California
From here:
California's undocumented immigrants seek more benefits - CalMatters
“Of the 1.6 million workers in the central San Joaquin Valley, an estimated 7% are undocumented, the report states.”
That would be around 112,000 criminal immigrants in the Valley compared to the 40,000 in Denver.
Let’s zoom in a little in Denver. Remember, 40,000 criminal immigrants have been transported there (maybe 15,000 by Governor Abbott who has to handle millions of these criminals a year)
Population of Denver 713,000 in 2022 – around 19% under 18, 30% Hispanic or Latino, two thirds white, 8% black.
U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Denver city, Colorado
Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metro Area: 1,223,825arund half the population of Colorado. - around 12% live in poverty.
Denver, CO - Profile data - Census Reporter
Number of homes In Denver:
Denver, CO Household Income, Population & Demographics | Point2 (point2homes.com)
Average House Price = 567,000 bucks
Denver Housing Market: House Prices & Trends | Redfin
“The Denver housing market is somewhat competitive. Homes in Denver receive 2 offers on average and sell in around 37 days. The median sale price of a home in Denver was $567K last month, up 2.0% since last year. The median sale price per square foot in Denver is $369, up 5.3% since last year.”
Number of homeless (non-criminal immigrant)
Who is homeless in Denver? Let's look at the numbers. (coloradosun.com)
The latest official count of homelessness in the seven-county Denver metro area found that 9,065 people were sleeping either on the streets or in homeless shelters on a given night.”
“The homeless population grew 32% in a single year.”
Enquiring minds want to know how, if Denver was incapable of looking after 9.000 at or near homeless. how it will prioritize and deal with the now 49,000 gmeless - criminals first or last? Will it employ another 500 city workers to look after the new 40,000 homeless? Maybe more teachers, nurses, police, fore-fighters. street cleaners, garbage collectors etc?
Another 500 staff with language skills of course - 75,000 bucks each in salery (pus benefts) for 37.5 million bucks a year/ Where will they get these qualified and experienced pople from at a time when there are cities around the coutry looking to do the same with their share of between 6 and ten million criminal immigrants?
From here:
Denver “general obligation” debt:
final-september-2024-budget_9.14.23.pdf (denvergov.org)
“Debt Limitations the City Charter limits general obligation bonded debt, excluding self-supporting water bonds, to three percent of the actual value of taxable property within the City.”
Given the median price of 567,000 and 514,0000 homes, the residential value (not offices/factories etc) = 291 billion bucks! Not much of a limit! Maybe it’s not all taxable.
However, from page 5 of 13 we have this:
As usual, interest of debt accumulated from past deficits is impossible to find. No transparency required!
Ok. there’s the actual property valuation used – 100 billion less at178 billion. Maximum allowable debt is 5.7 billion. I am not sure of the basis for that 3% limit – that is, whether it is dependent on the interest rate (which have rocketed in the last three years!).
The point is that the actual debt is 4.9 billion bucks out of that 6/7 billion and the minimum deficit to add to that debt is at least 576 million – that I think you can easily double with other direct and indirect costs.
This means that either Denver taxes will have to go up in 2025/6 by at least a billion bucks (+25%?) or Denver will go bankrupt or real estate prices will have to go up by 25% - further lowering the ability of those in lower income brackets to afford to buy a decent house.
Of course. Denver can do what every government does when faced with breaching a limit. Simply increase the limit! Damn the extra interest burden!
From here, property taxes are 0.57%.
Denver Property Tax Rates | Momentum 360 | Tax Rates 2023 (momentumvirtualtours.com)
“The property tax rate in Denver is calculated by dividing the total amount of property tax revenue collected by the city by the total taxable value of all property in the city. In Denver, the property tax rate for the year 2021 was 0.57%.”
Page 248 of 280 shows general obligation bond debt of a billion bucks and a further 833 million of “excise tax bonds” (Denver residents pay around 4/8% sales tax).
final-september-2024-budget_9.14.23.pdf (denvergov.org)
The interest bill for Denver is going to be in excess of 100 million dollars a year – my guesstimate is somewhere between 140 and 150 million bucks.
Here is a link to an assessment of Denver:
Denver : State Data and Comparisons : Data-Z
I wonder what kind of there are revisions to this on page 7 of 17:
PowerPoint Presentation (denvergov.org)
It is already at least 576 million in the hole, possibly a billion just for this year.
Onwards!
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Then the reported $160,000,000 deal between Wyo + Colorado via governors there. GeoEngineering/climate related apparently. Taxpayers got no say.
…running out of other people’s money, yet again.