The Denver City Council on Monday authorized up to $24 million in additional spending on private security services across the city this year.

The greater financial latitude — expanding contracts with three different companies — is necessary to meet Denver’s evolving security needs, according to summary documents, particularly around 24/7 shelters for migrants from the southern U.S. border and people who are homeless.

The council approved expanding the maximum amount of an existing contract with Securitas Security Services USA from $25 million to $43 million. That contract, which first went into effect at the beginning of 2022, expires at the end of the year but the city and the company have options to extend it for two more years.

The council also approved expanding contracts with two other firms Advanced Professional Security and Denver Metro Protective Services. Those on-call contracts originally reached their maximum billable amounts at $400,000 but are now authorized to draw down as much as $3.4 million in taxpayer dollars before the end of the year.

Nicol Suddreth, the city’s contract supervisor with the Department of General Services, told council members at a committee meeting last month that the three companies provide security service at more than 30 municipal facilities across Denver.

The demand for the services has grown substantially over the past two years, according to city officials, particularly thanks to the need to provide more 24-hour services at an expanded portfolio of city shelter facilities for migrants and people who are homeless.

When Denver first signed its contract with Securitas, the company dedicated 175 guards to the city’s needs. That number reached 250 earlier this year, Suddreth said last month.

The company provides on-site security for three former hotels that have been converted into homeless shelters as part of Mayor Mike Johnston’s All In Mile High homeless initiative.