No more $498,500 contracts.
The express lane says 15 items or fewer, and nothing stops a shopper from splitting 60 items into four baskets. Denver ran that play with your money.
The short version
The charter says council approves any contract of $500,000 or more. In May 2025, council refused to renew the Flock surveillance contract. Nine weeks later the mayor's office signed it anyway at $498,500.
Fifteen hundred dollars under the line.
The only rule against the trick is an executive order the mayor writes and enforces on himself. When the referee works for one team, you move the rule into the rulebook.
I will sponsor an ordinance that counts related contracts together, so splitting a deal to duck council review stops working. Until it passes, my office publishes every contract that lands close to the line, every week, by name.
The details
The charter rule
Denver Charter Section 3.2.6 ("Leases and contracts") requires council approval, by ordinance or resolution, of contracts requiring payment or receipt of $500,000 or more, sales or transfers of personal property worth $500,000 or more, and any contract paying a provider a percentage of generated revenues. The same section holds a trap almost nobody knows: if council fails to act within 30 days of submission, the contract "may be executed by City officials as though the ordinance or resolution had been enacted." A contract can pass this city's legislature the way a parking ticket beats you when nobody shows up to contest it.
Where the anti-splitting rule lives now, and why that's the problem
Executive Order 8 and its Memorandum 8A state that contracts "should not be split in a manner to avoid approval by City Council" and that agencies "may not subdivide their contracts to avoid these requirements." An executive order binds the administration only because the mayor says it does. The July 2025 Flock extension at $498,500, signed nine weeks after council unanimously rejected a larger version of the same deal, showed what that promise is worth under pressure. Nine council members formally asked Auditor O'Brien to investigate whether it was an intentional split. An investigation after the fact is not a rule. The ordinance below is the rule.
What already got fixed, so we don't claim credit for it
Council amended its own procedures in spring 2026 to require at least a draft contract be filed before the committee hearing, so members vote on final documents. This pledge builds on that. It doesn't duplicate it.
The ordinance
- Aggregation: contracts and amendments with the same counterparty, or its affiliates, for the same or continuing scope of work within any rolling 12-month period are counted together against the Charter Section 3.2.6 threshold. The Flock maneuver, a sub-threshold extension of a deal council just rejected, becomes a council vote by definition.
- Disclosure: every contract submitted between $400,000 and $499,999 must include a statement of all other city contracts with that counterparty in the prior 24 months, filed with the Clerk and posted publicly.
- Auditor referral: the Auditor reviews sub-threshold contract patterns and reports suspected splits to council, putting the existing October 2025 investigation posture on a permanent footing.
- No deemed approval without notice: within the limits of what ordinance can do under the charter, require the Clerk to publicly notice any contract approaching its 30-day automatic-execution date, so the default can never run out quietly. Fully removing the 30-day rule takes a charter amendment, and that referral belongs on the 2027 ballot.
The personal pledge (day one, no ordinance needed)
A standing public list, updated weekly: every city contract signed between $400,000 and $499,999, who signed it, and whether the counterparty has other recent city business. Sunlight while the ordinance moves.
Why 19 weeks is enough
Nine of thirteen sitting members already signed the letter calling the Flock split undemocratic. The votes exist. What's missing is a member whose signature issue this is. The ordinance drafts short, the Auditor is already engaged, and every week of delay produces fresh examples for the list.
What this doesn't do
This doesn't lower the $500,000 threshold, doesn't slow legitimate small contracts, and can't by itself repeal the 30-day rule. It makes evasion visible and countable, which is what the charter's authors assumed good faith would do.