2026 · Sources and uses

The budget, past the headline

The $100 receipt on the dashboard shows where Denver’s 2026 money goes. This page is what sits behind it: the same six fund groups in dollars, three citywide totals per resident, the largest single line in the General Fund, and what a household pays in the two city taxes it sees directly.

FACT Source: Final 2026 budget book · City and County of Denver · every figure here comes from it unless its own line names another publisher

Where the money goes, by fund group CALC

The city’s own fund breakout of its gross 2026 total, in dollars and per $100. The six groups sum to the printed gross exactly. The book prints this table in thousands of dollars, so each dollar figure here ends in three zeros.

Fund group	2026, gross	Per $100
General Fund	$1,663,080,000	$28.38
Enterprise funds	$1,272,494,000	$21.72
Appropriated special revenue funds	$970,822,000	$16.57
Capital projects funds	$951,306,000	$16.24
Debt service funds	$864,162,000	$14.75
Internal service funds	$136,943,000	$2.34
Total	$5,858,807,000	$100.00

The gross counts $447.4M that the city pays itself, in internal service charges and transfers between funds. The net total, $5,411,388,000, takes it out, and the book calls the net figure the more accurate picture. The General Fund row is the estimated-expenditures quantity, because that is what this table carries. The General Fund’s own summary prints it to the dollar as $1,663,079,510.

Per Denver resident

Three of the city’s citywide totals for 2026, each divided by the same count of 740,613 residents (Census, 2025). A per-resident figure is a scale, not a bill. Businesses and visitors pay too.

Net expenditures, per resident CALC

≈ $7,307

$5,411,388,000 ÷ 740,613 residents. Total net expenditures, all funds: the dashboard’s headline.

Gross expenditures, per resident CALC

≈ $7,911

$5,858,807,000 ÷ 740,613 residents. The same budget before taking out what the city pays itself.

General Fund appropriations, per resident CALC

≈ $2,263

$1,676,329,510 ÷ 740,613 residents. The General Fund is the city’s main operating fund.

The largest General Fund line

The General Fund is one of the six fund groups above. The enacted ordinance lists 64 General Fund items, and this is the largest of them by its printed 2026 amount. The rank covers the General Fund only. It is not the largest line in the whole budget.

Largest General Fund line CALC

$280,421,884

The Police Department, ordinance item 01010-3510000. FACT The amount is the ordinance’s own figure, and the department’s three division lines in the book sum to it to the dollar.

The rank is taken over every General Fund item, and those items sum to the printed General Fund total to the dollar, so none is missing from it. A tie at the top would be refused, not broken. The methodology page states the rule.

Where the money comes from

PENDING

Where Denver’s 2026 money comes from (taxes, charges, fees and grants, by source) is printed in the same Final 2026 budget book. It is being read and checked against the book’s own printed total, and this section stays blank on purpose until it is. Nothing here is estimated. The two taxes a household sees directly are in the next section.

What a household pays

Two city taxes reach a Denver household directly: the sales tax at the register and the property tax bill. Each line below names who levies it and where the figure is published. The school district’s share of the property tax bill is shown beside the city’s, and the two are never added together. Property tax figures are amounts levied, not amounts collected.

FACT City sales and use tax rate: 5.15% of a taxable sale. Source: City and County of Denver, Department of Finance, Treasury Division, Denver Tax Guide Topic No. 70 — Sales Tax (revised 03/2026).
FACT Combined rate a shopper pays in Denver: 9.15%. This is Denver’s own printed combined rate. It includes shares for the state and for regional districts, and those shares are not Denver’s money. Source: City and County of Denver, Department of Finance, Treasury Division, Denver Combined Tax Rates, effective 1-1-2025.
FACT Denver’s own property tax levy: 26.328 mills. A mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value. Source: Colorado Governor's Office of Information Technology / Department of Local Affairs, PropTaxMap — Levies (taxing districts/authorities in Colorado).
FACT Property tax levied for the City and County of Denver, 2025: $685,728,245. CALC That is 29.6% of everything levied on property in Denver, $2,314,333,258. Source: Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Division of Property Taxation, 2025 Fifty-Fifth Annual Report to the Governor and the General Assembly.
FACT Levied for the school district on the same bill: $1,441,397,716. CALC That is 62.3% of the total. It is Denver Public Schools’ money, not the city’s, and it is never added to the city’s figure. Same source as the line above.
CALC The remaining 8.1% of what is levied in Denver goes to other bodies on the same bill, such as special districts. It is not listed line by line here: $2,314,333,258 less the city’s and the school district’s amounts, over the total.
CALC City property tax per resident: ≈ $926. $685,728,245 ÷ 740,613 residents (Census, 2025). It is levied, not collected, and residents are not the only payers: businesses pay property tax too.

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