DENVER, Colorado — The Common Sense Institute's latest report says city agencies across Denver have spent a combined $356 million dollars serving migrants.
About 45,000 migrants have arrived in the Denver metro area since December 2022, which is when the city officially started tracking the number of arrivals. While the city tracked the number of people who utilized Denver's shelter system, it did not track how many people stayed in the metro area, but city officials suspect roughly half are still here today.
City Spending
The City of Denver has spent $79 million dollars on all support services, reflected in CSI's audit, with more than $27 million spent in sheltering costs.
Denver had initially estimated it would spend more than $180 million dollars when migrant arrivals were at their peak. The city had announced budget cuts to several departments to help with the estimated $180 million price tag on its migrant response.
"With projections as high as $180 million, the city pivoted away from an emergency shelter-based model that no longer met the needs on the ground and instead focused on a long-term system that, coupled with lower arrival numbers at the border, proved more sustainable and cost-efficient. That resulted in a $90 million budget," said city spokesperson Jon Ewing.
School Districts
The Common Sense Institute estimates that $228 million annually is being spent on new-to-country students in Denver Public Schools (DPS) and other metro area school districts. DJ Summers, director of policy and research at the institute, calculated that using a state average spending amount per pupil at $14,000.
The Colorado Department of Education in 2022 estimated the state average for per-pupil spending was $14,845, slightly higher than CSI's average.
CSI, through Colorado Open Records Act requests, estimated that there are 16,197 newcomer children in 17 different metro school districts. CSI says they received that number when requesting information on students from five different countries: Venezuela, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Summers says the five countries were chosen due to their high volume at the southern border since the influx Denver saw starting in December 2022.
Ewing said more than 16,000 students doesn't add up based on the numbers of arriving migrants. They city tracked 8,300 school-aged children between five and 18 years old in the Denver shelter system at some point. More than 2,000 of those students left with onward travel, with a paid-for bus or train ticket from the city of Denver. Ewing's best estimate is that 6,100 remained in Denver based on those numbers, who are now in various Denver metro school districts.
Ewing added that while the city estimates that of the 45,000 migrants who arrived in Denver, they estimated about half stayed, so around 20,000 people.
"In no world were 16,000 of those 20,000 individuals school aged children," Ewing said.
The majority of the children likely would have matriculated into DPS at some point.
According to DPS Director of External Communications Scott Pribble, 7,090 students joined Denver Public Schools with an entry code of "Transfer from Another Country" between January 1, 2023, and December 2, 2024. But because DPS won't track country of origin, it's possible many of those kids did not come from Central or South America.
As of Tuesday, 4,958 are still enrolled within DPS.
CSI also estimated more than $14,000 annually, which the state says is roughly correct if the students stayed in the classroom the entire year. According to DPS board documents, 4,763 new-to-country students enrolled sometime within the 2023-2024 school year. And of those who ended the school year with DPS last year, 80% were still enrolled.
Healthcare Costs
The health system also absorbed calls, with UC Health saying it had spent at least $17 million in uncompensated care and Denver Health saying its cost landed around $10 million 2023.
CSI estimated, based on this study, the number of likely visits to emergency departments based on length of stay and migrant arrival projections. Their method assumes one emergency department visit per year, totally more than 16,000 visits estimated at $49.1 million dollars.
The estimation, according to Denver Health, creates an apples-to-apples comparison when it comes to health cost. The health system also said that while they did see the migrant community using the emergency room, particularly in the beginning of the influx, they now see more migrant families in outpatient care settings.
"In 2023, Denver Health estimates to have cared for more than 7,000 newcomer patients accounting for 20,000 patient visits (less than 2% of total patient visits) to the health system. This resulted in $10 million in uncompensated care for Denver Health out of a total of $140 million in uncompensated care (less than 10%) for the health system in 2023," said Denver Health spokesperson Dane Roper.
Cost Benefit
Professor Anita Alvez Pena at Colorado State University said while the numbers can give people sticker shock, it' important to note that doing nothing doesn't mean no money spent.
"I think it makes sense to be honest that there are big costs at the beginning of any human migration, but there are both short run and long run benefits associated with new population flows into areas," Alvez Pena said. "So, we can do what we can through policy to minimize those costs and to smooth things as we have this transition to new equilibrium to have more people in our communities that are contributing in a lot of different ways."
Alvez Pena said going off of estimates and averages will naturally end up on the high end of the financial scale. She referenced the average cost per student as an example within CSI's report.