AURORA | What began as a routine Saturday workshop for city council members discussing the budget became a tense exchange as Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky criticized Aurora spending priorities and revealed confidential information from an executive session.
“Before we jump to fees or tax increases, there is a lot of wasteful spending in this city,” Jurinsky told city council members and top city officials assembled Saturday to discuss current and future budget issues, including a looming and growing shortfall.
City budget officials and administrators told city lawmakers that the 2026 budget will need to be balanced by either drawing on budget reserves or possibly adding new or larger city fees, and possibly new or higher taxes, to raise cash.
During the Spring Workshop, Greg Hays, the city budget manager, said that further analysis found an additional $13.5 million shortfall in addition to the $11.5 million they previously predicted a few weeks ago. The 2026 budget shortfall for the operating funds is $25 million.
The Business Research Division of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder helps the city develop revenue estimates for the budget process, according to the City of Aurora.
The mood was serious as City Manager Jason Batchelor and other officials outlined growing cash problems and potential unpopular ways to raise money to close budget gaps.
The mood lightened when Gen-X Batchelor said Hays is incredibly cautious with planning the next five years by predicting a “bounce back” by 2027, but planning for an elongated slump for multiple years, just in case. Batchelor jested that Hays was like Kevin Bacon in the 1970s movie “Animal House.”
The room roared when millennial Councilmember Crystal Murillo asked Batchelor to refrain from using 1970s movie metaphors that have people in the room, including her, scrambling to Google what he’s talking about.
As Murillo was asking for more current movie links to the budget quagmire, people in the room noticed that Jurinsky, who was attending the meeting virtually, was trying to say something.
The room quieted as she spoke.
“I will yield some of what I want to say because of the upcoming presentation,” she said. “I proudly was not a part of a council that authorized to build a $26 million parking lot in the city of Aurora that gets almost no use instead of talking about fees and tax increases and stuff like that.”
Jurinsky apparently referred to the Hyatt Regency Aurora-Denver Conference Center parking lot, across from the Aschutz Medical Center, which was built before any current city council member was elected.
She said she didn’t hear anyone talking about budget cuts, and she wanted to. The first cut she proposed would be the city council’s travel budget of about $81,000 for 2025, according to the city spokesperson Ryan Luby.
“I also think that there are several groups in this city that we offer either free things to or millions and millions of dollars to, that I don’t think are well representative of Aurora,” Jurinsky said.
Mid-sentence, she stopped to tell some people to stop talking while she was talking.
“I am wholeheartedly very disappointed in my colleagues with Monday night’s vote. You know, we were told that sending (domestic violence cases) to the county would save us somewhere in the realm of three-to-four-million-dollars, and we’re talking about negotiating 2.5…”
She was immediately cut off by City Attorney Pete Schulte, who said, “That was an exec session. Just a reminder. I’m sorry.”
He was referring to the city council’s closed “executive session” segment of the meeting, permitted by law as long as the city council discusses only specific matters and does not conduct voting or any official action. Jurinsky was referring to an ongoing controversy over whether Aurora should shutter its domestic violence program in city courts as a way to save money.
Murillo instantly asked about the penalties for revealing information discussed in executive session. Schulte said it technically isn’t a penalty, it “waives the city council’s privilege.”
“We continue to put our city at risk when we are not confidential,” Murillo said, to which Jurinsky replied, “I don’t care,” and Murillo said, “We know.”
Jurinsky then went on.
“This council is not a serious council when it comes to talking about how we’re going to balance a budget,” she said. “We have plans. We make plans, and then we turn out to be all over the place. So I would like our personal travel budgets looked at, I would like serious consideration about sending the (domestic violence cases) to the county. I would like to look at groups and organizations that we fund that I don’t think are doing anything for the City of Aurora.”
She also said she would like to move forward with selling off “graffiti-covered vacant properties with broken windows.”
“I will yield to the (Parks, Recreation and Open Space) presentation that is getting ready to come forward, because I think another problem in this city is there’s not enough business minds, and we leave a lot of money on the table,” Jurinksy said.
Councilmember Alison Coombs pushed back at Jurinsky’s remarks.
“So I just want to be really clear that one of the least serious things that happens on this council is the absolute disregard of the charter and the rules in relation to how we engage with staff, in relation to how we engage with our policies, in relation to how we engage with executive sessions,” Coombs said, “So no, just no to all of the conversation about the policy decisions recommended by professionals being unserious from a person who has no regard for any level of policy making, research, rules and our charter. Just no, not today.”
The tense exchange is a regular feature of many city council meetings. Last fall, as city council members worked to unwind a pet project sponsored by Jurinsky to end Aurora’s so-called $2 head tax on employees in an effort to stall the loss of $6 million a year it raises for the city, Jurinsky lambasted and badgered fellow council members from the dais and in profane text messages, the Sentinel reported after being given access to the texts.
She more recently continues to champion the end of the city’s domestic violence court program.
Last year, city council voted to shut down the storied domestic violence court program and send about 1,300 to 1,600 annual cases to county courts, starting Jan. 1, 2025. The transition was later postponed to July 1. The push to close the program came after months of controversy over saving city money by scrapping Aurora’s public defender program and, ultimately, closing the domestic violence program.
At the end of March, Arapahoe County officials warned Aurora that the district court would not receive the state funding to take over domestic violence cases from Aurora Municipal Courts beginning this summer, putting proper handling of complicated cases at risk.
The executive session Jurinsky referred to when she shared the sensitive information on Saturday was April 7, according to city officials. The agenda said they would privately discuss negotiations and take legal advice regarding court service with Adams County, permitted under state open meetings laws.
Two years ago, Sentinel filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming that the council illegally conducted city business during the executive session.
That meeting’s focus was on whether the city council should pursue or drop a censure measure pending against Jurinsky. She was criticized for allegedly violating city policing by interfering with police personnel issues. A Colorado appellate court has ruled in favor of the Sentinel, and the case is now before the state Supreme Court after an appeal by the City of Aurora.
“Obviously, everything that happens in executive session is privileged,” Schulte later told the Sentinel. “Generally, when we’re going into executive session for a negotiation, what would happen in those situations is that council would give the city manager and me, as a city attorney, direction on how to conduct the negotiations and what they would be satisfied with. So there’s no vote, just a discussion about the parameters of the negotiation moving forward.”
Schulte said that no city council members have contacted him about pursuing censure against Jurinsky, linked to her comments from executive session.
Pretty easy to throw a monkey-wrench into an important discussion….when you can’t be bothered to show up! Way to show you really care. Another knucklehead, Boebert Barbie.
PS: Thanks for the massive budget shortfall. Fiscal know how? Yeah, right.
Don’t hate her because you ain’t her. DJ is playing 5-D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Look at how much her personal empire has grown in the short time that she’s been on council. She’s run all of the dine-and-dashers out of town, cut taxes for businesses, put Aurora on the map for being the international headquarters of a very big and influential Venezuelan gang, and, soon, we’ll ship all of our domestic violence criminals to Brighton and Centennial. Love it or leave it. She’s making Aurora great again. If you want good roads and fire stations, go somewhere else.
Tough to understand where you’re coming from MAGA MARY. She’s hardly making Aurora Great again and yes, I prefer good roads and fire stations and libraries and police …
Hey, Doug, look at the big picture instead of words and you would understand MAGA Mary is trying to use some sarcasm. Including her fake name. It’s just that she didn’t do it very well. Oh, well.
Do you really think the socialists on the Council will do any good at cutting costs? As is already happening, they are using deflection to hold back the real task at hand, cutting the budget.
Danielle, really, study the real savings, like DOGE, cut departments. Civil Service Commission can be readily eliminated. It serves no purpose that couldn’t be easily handled with staff already hired. Must be others, at least Divisions.
Savings are there all around after all the free Fed money since the Covid days has spoiled us and ballooned our budget.
Delaying costs will only delay the problem, raising taxes has not passed ballots in the past years and using past savings also just delays action. The answer is to cut. Solve the problem without worrying about placing the blame.
Hey Greg , I suppose you read the Sentinel blog, I’m known with a group I hang with as Dr. Doom. Take it as a compliment. I know you will help solve this minor dilemma before it becomes major.
Silly Danielle…
Way to go, Sentinel and CMs Murillo and Coombs!
While the city faces the serious, hard reality of a chronically insufficient tax revenue, you decide to pick as fight over procedural rules to attack CM Jurinsky. As if her actions take priority over the budgetary cliff the city is facing?
As a rabidly non-partisan independent, I’m siding with CM Jurinsky on this. Cut the drama and focus on what the city needs — its not your petty partisan attacks.
Good points, Jeff. The City conducts way too much business behind closed doors. A little sunlight might go a long way to shield residents from the boondoggles and bad deals that keep sinking this City.