Headlines Wednesday October 22, 2025
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Denver Mayor Restores Some Budget Cuts at Council Request; Colorado Judge Says ICE Violates Fed Law by Denying Bail KGNU News
Mayor restores some budget cuts at council request
Mayor Mike Johnston agreed on Monday to restore a parking ticket dispute system and fund ten other city council requests using a one-time COVID-19 relief interest fund. This comes after a previous announcement that there would be $200 million in budget cuts and 169 layoffs.
The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure will create a new administrative parking ticket appeal program that does not involve the court system. The program will replace five parking magistrate positions eliminated in Johnston’s proposed 2026 budget. The costs will be covered through parking meter fees and parking fines. A form created online for drivers to dispute tickets was cut last month.
The funding for most restored programs comes from approximately $4 million in the American Rescue Plan Act interest that the city had intended to preserve for “unexpected expenses” and Johnston warned that the funding will not be available again in 2027.
In Johnston’s budget announcement last month, he warned the city council that any amendments would create more job cuts and losses.
Quasi-Governmental Colorado healthcare marketplace has ‘serious spending problems’
A State audit found the quasi-governmental health insurance marketplace, Connect for Health Colorado, turned up patterns of egregious spending.
One such spending case includes upwards of $13,000 spent on alcohol over 18 months by the agency’s CEO.
The Legislative Audit Committee released the audit, which included investigations into affairs like the organization’s financial management and sponsorship programming. Legislation passed in 2022 allocated state money to the health insurance venture — through 2023 and 2024 the organization received $3.7 million, all tax-payer funds.
Colorado Politics reports that the audit showed 15 of the 49 reviewed sponsorships did not target the insurance venture’s target audience. Some sponsored events had no discernable connection to the organization’s healthcare mission, including a golf tournament and a Denver Zoo party.
Colorado Politics says the auditors emphasized an immediate change in financial management for the state-affiliated firm.
DOI chooses not to lay off unionized workers, including in CO
A federal judge in California has issued a ruling preventing the Trump administration from laying off more workers while the federal government has shut down.
But the Department of Interior (DOI) says layoffs for thousands of employees are “imminent.” This including hundreds of employees in our region.
In court filings, the DOI agreed that it would not go forward with any layoffs involving workers in federal employee unions, several of which are currently suing the government.
At the same time, officials also submitted a list of its planned layoffs, spanning the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and others.
The BLM planned to cut almost 12 percent of its workforce at its Utah state office, along with nearly 50% of the workforce at its National Operations Center in Denver and 33 positions at the Colorado state office.
The National Park Service is looking at cuts across the nation, including 16% of the staff at its Denver Service Center.
There were also plans to cut more than half of the employees working in the U.S. Geological Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center for the Rocky Mountain Region.
The DOI wrote in the court filings that these planned layoffs predated directives by the Trump administration to prepare for reductions in force should a shutdown occur.
Colorado judge says ICE violates federal law by denying bail
A federal judge in Denver ordered the release of a man held for five months in Aurora’s detention center following a wave of similar rulings around the country. The judge ruled that federal immigration authorities’ new policy of denying bail to longtime, undocumented residents of the United States “likely violates federal law.”
Nester Gutierrez, the man held in Aurora’s detention center, was the main financial provider for this family. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents argued that he was not suffering “irreparable harm” by his continued detention. The court ruling, released Friday night, also temporarily prohibits federal immigration authorities from deporting him. U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez’s order appears to apply to other detainees, who have lived in the U.S. for years, and would have been able to seek temporary bail while their immigration cases played out.
Rodriguez’s order also prevents ICE from sidestepping the lawsuit. It prevents deporting detainees or sending them to other facilities that would prevent them from getting bail. According to Colorado Politics, lawyers in Colorado have ruled that the policy is wrong. The attorney representing Gutierrez will be in court mid-November to certify the lawsuit as a class action suit.
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