Transparency: Public Notice and Engagement Follow-up

A photo cropped horizontally to show the front of the City and County Building on a sunny day with a clear blue sky.

The Department of Community Planning and Development, the agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships, the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure, and the Mayor’s Office with support from the city’s Technology Services agency implemented 14 of our 17 recommendations to varying degrees. Only eight were fully implemented.

Because of Community Planning and Development’s efforts, staff can provide more consistent and valuable engagement with the public, and staff are better able to gather public input and tell residents how that input will be used. Meanwhile, Human Rights and Community Partnerships now has better guidance to comply with open meeting requirements and post meeting agendas and notices for the 10 mayoral advisory commissions under its purview. It also created guidance to better support staff liaisons and commissioners.

Infographic showing 8 recommendations were fully implemented, 6 recommendations were partially implemented, and three recommendations were not implemented.

Remaining Risks

The recommendations not fully implemented by the agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships, the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure, and the Mayor’s Office present several lingering risks. Among them:

  • Members of the 10 mayoral advisory commissions might still not be receiving regular updates from the Mayor’s Office about how their input was used in the city’s decision-making, which could discourage future engagement.
  • The Department of Transportation & Infrastructure’s Office of Community and Business Engagement still lacks clear expectations for the support it should provide to bikes project teams, which could impact the consistency and quality of public engagement for bike lane installation projects.
  • Those responsible for planning Transportation & Infrastructure’s engagement efforts for bike lane installation projects still do not have clear policies and procedures that outline their responsibilities and how public input should be handled. This could limit how the department considers the interests and concerns of the public.

Auditor's Letter

May 4, 2023

In keeping with generally accepted government auditing standards and Auditor’s Office policy, as authorized by city ordinance, we have a responsibility to monitor and follow up on audit recommendations to ensure city agencies address audit findings through appropriate corrective action and to aid us in planning future audits.

After following up on the “Transparency: Public Notice and Engagement” audit report issued in November 2021, we determined the Department of Community Planning and Development fully implemented all four recommendations we made to it in the original audit — while the agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships fully implemented four recommendations, partially implemented three, and did not implement one other. The Department of Transportation & Infrastructure partially implemented one recommendation and did not implement two others. Finally, the Mayor’s Office and the city’s Technology Services agency partially implemented both recommendations we had made to them.

During the original audit, we found inconsistent compliance with public notice requirements, which limited the public’s awareness of some city activities. We also found that standards, expectations, and practices for public notice and engagement varied across the city.

Despite these city agencies’ efforts, we determined some risks associated with our initial findings have not been fully addressed. As a result, we may revisit these risk areas in future audits to ensure the city takes appropriate action.

We appreciate the leaders and team members in the Department of Community Planning and Development, the agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships, the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure, the Mayor’s Office, and Technology Services who shared their time and knowledge with us throughout the audit and the follow-up process. Please contact me at 720-913-5000 with any questions.

Denver Auditor's Office

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Timothy O'Brien, CPA

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AUDITOR TIMOTHY O'BRIEN, CPA
Denver Auditor

Denver Auditor´s Office

201 W. Colfax Ave. #705 Denver, CO 80202
Email: auditor@denvergov.org
Call: 720-913-5000
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