Denver’s independent watchdog says he still can’t get the paperwork he needs to finish examining how City Hall builds its budget, and he’s putting the blame squarely on Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration. Auditor Timothy O’Brien says the mayor’s office has been blocking his review of the budget process, and that the holdup has now stretched past a year.
O’Brien told Axios in an interview this week that the budget-process audit has stalled, with his office alleging the administration has failed to provide specific documents and examples needed to complete the review for more than a year. He said the Johnston administration withheld specific documents his office needs for the review, and argued the mayor’s team simply doesn’t understand how the budget process actually works. The city’s charter, per Axios, grants the auditor broad access to city records.
This isn’t the first time O’Brien has aired frustrations about access. Speaking separately to the Denver Post, he said city agencies sometimes make it difficult to get the information his team is seeking for audits, specifically citing planning documents, contracts, budgets and payroll records his office has struggled to obtain recently. O’Brien attributed the friction to a change in leadership, saying, “I would say it’s really the result of a new administration.”
City Officials Push Back on the Blocking Claim
Jon Ewing, a spokesperson named in the Axios report, disputed the claim that the administration was blocking the audit. He said the city has cooperated with auditors for months and has provided hundreds of pages of documents. Ewing also noted the budget is a public document that goes through a public process, pushing back on the notion that anything was being hidden.
Michael Brannen, another official cited in the same report, said the mayor’s office and Finance Department should be transparent with the information. According to Axios, O’Brien said residents, city council members and administration officials have all voiced concerns about the budget process.
The Fight Over Dollars and Authority
The records dispute lands in the middle of a bruising budget season. O’Brien has also accused Johnston of interfering with the Auditor’s Office itself, telling the mayor in blunt terms, per CBS News Colorado, to “stop interfering with the Auditor's Office and stop preventing me from doing my job.” He has said the mayor’s office cut his 2026 budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and argued that neither the mayor’s office nor the Finance Department had the authority to make that cut.
The station’s report notes that Johnston’s proposed 2026 budget called for broad cuts to close a $200 million deficit, amounting to roughly 6% less spending than in 2025, with 169 city workers laid off as part of the belt-tightening. A spokesperson for Johnston said the Mayor’s Office and Finance Department have worked closely with independent agencies to find creative cost-saving solutions.
Denver’s city council had its own objections to the broader spending plan. Councilmembers criticized the budget process as complicated and lacking collaboration and transparency, according to Colorado Politics. Council members countered with more than two dozen amendments to Johnston’s $1.66 billion spending plan, of which 10 were adopted — including one that replenished the auditor’s office budget. The council ultimately rejected the mayor’s overall plan in a 6-6 vote, but the amended version still took effect because the city charter required a budget in place by Nov. 12.
A Pattern of Clashes Over Access
Tension between O’Brien’s office and city leadership isn’t new. In 2022, O’Brien sued the city council over limits placed on his subpoena powers, after a change let agencies and contractors with confidential or proprietary records offer access on-site rather than handing over copies for off-site review, the Denver Post reported at the time. That same dispute traced back to a planned 2021 audit of council operations that never happened, because council leaders insisted staff only sit for interviews with a senior staffer or attorney present.
The auditor’s office isn’t a small operation — it has about 100 staff members, roughly half of them in audit services, per the Denver Post. Years earlier, in May 2020, the office’s own transparency audit found Denver was less open with records than neighboring local governments and sometimes slow to respond to requests. O’Brien made 14 recommendations at the time, and city officials agreed to implement nine of them by that September.
What Happens Next
O’Brien originally folded the budget-process review into his 2026 plan to examine transparency and fairness in how Denver allocates taxpayer dollars, and he has kept the review on his 2027 audit plan as the standoff drags on. His term ends in July 2027, and Axios reports his successor could abandon the audit if his office doesn’t finish it first. For now, Denver’s independent watchdog faces open questions about whether he can scrutinize city spending effectively while the records fight continues.
