Denver Public Schools (DPS) - "Budgets are Values Documents" 

We agree, and want to make sure that low-income workers are not a casualty of the current budget crisis.  The importance of this issue can be seen in the following data.  

40 percent of low income homes have experienced job losses over the past couple months (1), and  living wages in Denver are higher than you may expect.  For example, a household with two adults working and one child would require both adults to earn $16.25/hr.  If only one adult is working, they would have to earn $27.21/hr. (2).

Last year, Denver Public Schools (DPS) committed to raising the minimum wage for all employees to $15/hr. by 2023 and were set to spend $3 million this year to make progress towards the goal. (3)

Unfortunately, stopping increases for low-income workers is currently an option to address DPS's current budget situation (4), and we ask you to please take this option off of the table.  We understand that DPS was simply meeting their obligation to provide the public with all options, and were not supporting anything specific.  We respectfully ask to remove this option as we develop a Budget/Values Document. Thank you for your time.

(1) https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/14/pandemic-job-losses-households-258710

(2) https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/19740

(3) https://co.chalkbeat.org/2019/3/21/21107112/denver-school-district-commits-to-15-minimum-wage-by-2023

(4) https://go.boarddocs.com/co/dpsk12/Board.nsf/files/BNQRP96EEB46/%24file/DPS%20Board%20of%20Education%20Update_COVID-19%20and%20Financial%20State%20of%20the%20District_April2020_Final_updated_4_16_2020.pdf