The Denver Newspaper Agency seeks to cut about $35 million of expenses, double what had been reported previously, according to people familiar with the situation.

Earlier reports focused on a request for $18 million of concessions from union employees. But agency management has a larger cost-savings goal, which would come from operations and management concessions, the sources said.

Agency spokesman Jim Nolan said Wednesday that he wasn't in the position to confirm or deny any numbers.

"The DNA consistently has not discussed its finances in public - only in very rare circumstances," he said.

The agency handles the business and advertising operations of The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. It is owned jointly by MediaNews, The Post's owner, and E.W. Scripps, the Rocky's owner.

Union-concession talks initially were requested by Denver Post publisher and MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton in December, days after Scripps put the Rocky up for sale, saying that it wanted to leave the Denver market.

Scripps has been mum on whether there are any prospective buyers for the paper.

Singleton, through a MediaNews official, initially said this week that the $18 million goal for union concessions hadn't changed and that he didn't know where the $35 million figure came from.

On Wednesday, through an assistant, Singleton said he couldn't speak for the agency.

The agency originally had set a deadline of Jan. 16 to obtain the concessions from its unions, saying that it needed them in its efforts to renegotiate $130 million of bank debt.

But talks between agency management and five of the agency's six unions are ongoing without a new deadline.

A number of cost-savings ideas have been discussed during negotiations, including outsourcing, but union officials have long been opposed to that.

Separately, Singleton in December requested $2 million of concessions from The Post's union employees.

The Post's management and union employees are negotiating a new labor contract that would include pay cuts, unpaid furloughs and benefit reductions, according to a joint bargaining note to union members this week.

The note said that Post management had agreed to take pay and benefit cuts equal to those taken by union employees.