A $950 Million City Bond Deserves Full Transparency

In 2017, Denver voters approved the $937 million Elevate Denver Bond Program to improve civic infrastructure across the city. Eight years later, while some projects have made meaningful progress, many remain delayed, over budget or not yet started. Now, the city is preparing to ask voters to approve another nearly billion dollars through the proposed Vibrant Denver package.

Before we’re asked to vote this November, we deserve more than summaries and categories. We deserve transparency. We deserve details.

As of today, there is no public cost breakdown for many of the 59 proposed projects in the bond. No explanation of how figures were determined. No access to the financial assumptions, cost modeling or contingency calculations behind the totals. For a bond package of this size, that’s a problem.

Taxpayers should not be asked to authorize nearly a billion dollars in new debt without seeing the documentation that supports it. If we’re serious about earning the public’s trust, the city should publish the workpapers used to build the budget for each proposed project.

This isn’t a critique of infrastructure investment. Well-managed bonds are a vital tool for building a strong, modern city. But responsible investment requires oversight, and oversight should start early in the process.

That’s why the city should release a full, project-by-project cost summary that includes line items, assumptions and the financial models behind them. Denver should also commit to regularly updating a Vibrant Bond dashboard to include budget-to-actual figures, timelines, and cost-to-complete estimates.

We’ve been here before. A combined $1.2 billion in bond spending was approved by voters, and nearly a decade later, 103 of its projects still haven’t broken ground as of the end of July. That kind of delay raises important questions about execution and reporting. We have an opportunity with this next bond request to build better transparency and accountability structures- and get better results.

Denver residents want to support good projects that improve our daily life and solve real problems. Taxpayers also want to know that their money is being managed responsibly. It’s not an unreasonable demand.

Raise the bar before you ask for money. Show your work. Give voters the clarity they need to make informed decisions. Show that you will be good stewards of taxpayer investments.

Public trust is earned through actions and through results. In a moment in our city’s history of economic challenge, earn that trust through transparency and a clear commitment to getting things right from the start.

Erik Clarke is an executive controller in the private sector and has held leadership roles at large accounting firms, like Crowe and Deloitte, specializing in internal audit and financial advisory.

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