Denver Mayor Defunding Police and Fire Depts to Pay for More Migrant Services

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston proposes defunding the city’s police and fire departments to put more cash to house and care for illegals as the city continues to drown in a wave of illegal aliens and the costs wash over the Mile High City like a tidal wave.

The city is not only increasing its spending on free food, clothing, medical care, and housing, among other things, it is also spending for programs on job counseling, language instruction, and other job training resources for migrants.

According to Mayor Johnston, “The program also includes access to language instruction, career pathway explorations, industry-recognized credential training and work-based learning opportunities,” OANN News reported on Friday.

This newest suite of training programs for illegals is part of Johnston’s proposed $89.9 million in spending for migrants.

But according to the Denver Police and Fire Departments, some of this new spending Johnston wants to indulge is coming from their budgets.

The Denver Police Dept., for instance, confirmed that it is losing $8.4 million from its operating budget.

The city’s fire department is also being told it will lose money, with a deficit of $2.5 million cut from its budget.

According to KSUA-TV in Denver, Johnston is also set to cut the pay of the city’s 9-1-1 operators by making changes in how they pay the public service operators.

Like other left-wingers, Johnston has been massaging the English language to change how people perceive illegals by calling them “newcomers,” instead of law-breaking illegals.

“After more than a year of facing this crisis together, Denver finally has a sustainable plan for treating our newcomers with dignity while avoiding the worst cuts to city services,” Johnston said. “So many times we were told that we couldn’t be compassionate while still being fiscally responsible. Today is proof that our hardest challenges are still solvable, and that together we are the ones who will solve them.”

“Individuals arriving in Denver after April 10 will be provided a short-term stay at a congregate site along with assistance securing onward travel to another destination. Newcomers who choose to remain in Denver may utilize available local and community support,” the press release concluded.

Johnston has proposed cuts in other city services, too, totalling about $45.9 million in cuts. The plan will have to be approved by the city council which will begin debating the plan on April 16.

Venezulean migrants wait in a line to get paper work to be admitted to shelters at a migrant processing center on May 9, 2023 in Denver, Colorado. (Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty)

People pack and prepare to leave the largest migrant encampment on 27th Ave. between Zuni St. and Alcott St. in Denver, Colorado on Wednesday, January 3, 2024. The City Council has allocated $300,000 for migrant families from this campsite cover their first month’s rent. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

The cuts are not sudden. Johnston has been warning for months that the continued costs forced upon the city by Joe Biden’s constant waves of illegals would force him to cut city services.

In December, he insisted that he would have to cut the city budget by more than they did during the recession.

During an interview with ABC News, Johnston said that if the sanctuary city doesn’t get help from the federal government to deal with the financial impacts of the migrant influx in the city, the budget impact of dealing with migrants will be so large that they’ll have to cut the rest of their budget by about 10 percent, which would be a deeper cut than the cuts they made during the recession in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Johnston stated that he doesn’t know where he’d make cuts, but “We’re having that hard conversation with our departments and our city right now. We’d like to avoid that problem. We think if the federal government can take action on the supplemental budget that President Biden has proposed, that would be $14 billion that could help meet this need.

“And so, we want to avoid having to make those hard trade-offs and we want the federal government to take action. If they don’t, we’ll be looking at a $160 million impact. That’s 10% of our entire budget. So, if you imagine cutting all of your city agencies by 10%, and that would be historic cuts, larger than we’ve seen even in the recession times of the 2009 and 2010 cycle.”

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