Denver council passes $55M jail-care bill; enactment still pending
The City Council approved a proposed $55.03 million Denver Health agreement for care at two detention facilities, but the available record shows the bill awaiting the mayor’s signature.
Denver City Council passed a bill Aug. 17 approving a proposed $55.03 million agreement with Denver Health and Hospital Authority to provide comprehensive correctional health care at the Denver County Jail and Downtown Detention Center. The bill has not yet reached full enactment in the available records and remains listed as awaiting the mayor’s signature.
The filed Council Bill 26-1036 identifies the agreement as City Clerk’s Filing No. 202685097 and says the contract is available through City Council, but it does not include the contract’s detailed terms. A public legislative mirror lists the proposed amount as $55,031,460 and an end date of Dec. 31, 2028. The available records do not establish a verified start date or identify renewal, extension or option provisions.
The bill establishes the agreement’s broad purpose but not its complete clinical scope. The underlying signed agreement and a document titled “DSD Jail Medical Contract Denver Health v2” were identified in the record, but their contents and direct official file links were not accessible in the materials reviewed.
The available bill and legislative record also do not specify minimum staffing levels, qualifications, coverage requirements, response times, reporting duties, quality measures, accreditation requirements, medical-record standards, penalties or other measurable performance standards. Those provisions may be in the incorporated contract, but they could not be verified.
The Health and Safety Committee approved the bill by consent July 22, and the filed copy records City Council’s Aug. 17 passage. The bill’s mayoral-approval, ordinance-number, clerk-attestation and publication fields were blank in the copy reviewed. Those records do not establish that the mayor has approved the measure, that the clerk has attested it or that publication has been completed.
The records therefore support reporting that City Council passed CB 26-1036, but not that the measure is a fully enacted ordinance or that the contract has been executed. The mayor’s action, clerk attestation, publication date and complete contract terms remain unresolved.