The D.C. Council moved to reverse several controversial budget cuts proposed by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and delayed a planned redevelopment of the K Street Transitway as it approved a $19.7 billion fiscal 2024 budget Tuesday.
As she presented her proposed budget in March, Bowser (D) emphasized the need to expedite downtown’s economic recovery while returning funds for services to pre-pandemic levels, leading to criticism from advocates and some lawmakers who said demand for those programs had not significantly waned. On Monday, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) revealed his own version of the budget that restored some of those slashed funds: putting $35 million more toward emergency rental assistance, $40 million over several years for about 230 new permanent housing vouchers, and some $30 million for programs for legal aid and victims’ services.
“When the CFO’s budget revenue estimate came out, we all knew we were going to face a real challenge. When the mayor’s budget came out, that challenge only got harder, given all the damage done to the social safety net,” council member Matthew Frumin (D-Ward 3) said ahead of Tuesday’s vote. “The budget [Mendelson] has come forward with addresses those issues in a meaningful way, but there’s still a lot to do.”
The council also moved, without debate, to repeal a contentious measure that it had approved two years ago to gradually remove school resource officers, or SROs, from campuses by 2025, while advancing a separate amendment from council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) to create a committee to explore alternate options for school safety. Bowser has long opposed the phaseout of police in schools; she and Mendelson unsuccessfully tried to reverse it during last year’s budget vote).
The council also approved initiatives to increase the city’s tax abatement for office-to-residential conversion projects in 2028 with strengthened affordability requirements and restored funding for a “Baby Bonds” program that offers trust fund accounts to low-income children, a measure that Bowser’s budget proposal had defunded because of an error from the city’s chief financial officer.
Tuesday’s 11-0 vote was the first of two that the council will take on the budget before sending it to Bowser to sign. Council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) was unable to attend the council’s first budget vote as he recovers from surgery, according to his office. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) voted “present.”
Mendelson further included $15 million to boost pay for charter school educators while funding his legislation that seeks to protect individual D.C. public school campuses from facing any budget cuts, shifting funds away from the central office.
“We were able to make substantial progress,” Mendelson said Tuesday while explaining his changes. “All of these should help in our struggle to change the equity equation in our city.”
He found extra money, in part, by delaying a proposed $116 million makeover of the K Street corridor backed by Bowser and council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2); some of that money will go to other transit initiatives, including overnight bus service and restoring three D.C. Circulator routes that Bowser had also suggested cutting. Mendelson had initially hoped to fund a proposal for fare-free Metro buses in the District, but Metro’s board said earlier this month the plan needed more regional input and should be pushed until next year.
Also in the realm of transit, the council approved a 25-cent “digital dispatch fee” for rides in gas-powered ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, which will help pay for the overnight Metrobus service. That proposal had evolved from a $2 congestion fee for ride-hailing trips downtown pitched by council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) that had divided the council.
Provisions related to crime were not among the day’s controversial subjects: the council rejected a proposal from the mayor to shift the Department of Forensic Sciences crime-scene services division to the police department, but it included funds requested by D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III and Bowser for police hiring and retention. The budget vote came the same day as both leaders testified on crime and public safety in the city at a House Oversight Committee hearing.
But other budgetary asks went unfulfilled heading into Tuesday, including requests from advocates who said the city needed to go further to ensure money reached residents who needed it most. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) had hoped to fund her legislation to boost D.C.’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit, which helps low-income residents buy food. Some of the city’s workers excluded from certain benefits — who included undocumented immigrants and gig economy and domestic workers — held a protest outside the Wilson Building on Tuesday morning to request financial support; last year, the council had voted to award them $20 million because of their ineligibility for unemployment benefits and pandemic aid.
But Mendelson said Monday most of that “didn’t get out the door,” spurring Bowser to repurpose the funds, which he did not restore.
Gray in a letter before the meeting requested funds to expand D.C. Streetcar service. White expressed support for excluded workers Tuesday morning while announcing his own ideas to redirect capital funds for streetscape projects in Ward 8 to instead pay for renovations to several schools and recreation centers. White, who said he will introduce his amendments for the council’s second vote on the budget, also sought money to enhance the Good Hope Road corridor in Southeast, which will soon be renamed Marion Barry Avenue.
A last-minute proposal from Parker sought to provide money for excluded workers and increase SNAP benefits and create a D.C. child tax credit, among other initiatives, by delaying a planned sunset of a tax increase on commercial land deals worth at least $2 million that Bowser and the council imposed in 2019.
Parker said his proposal would generate about $390 million in additional funds through fiscal 2027, allowing for additional housing vouchers, food security and rental assistance. Anticipating concerns about how maintaining the tax could affect office-to-residential developments, Parker proposed exempting these types of conversions from the extension.
“Who is the District’s comeback for? It’s not by happenstance that we see concentrated poverty in parts of the city generation after generation,” Parker told his colleagues. “I reject the premise that we don’t have enough money in a city with a nearly $20 billion budget.”
But several lawmakers spoke out against the idea, including council members Henderson, Pinto, Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) and Kenyan R. McDuffie (I-At Large), expressing concerns that the extension could discourage building sales. Mendelson said major tax decisions should be left up to the city’s Tax Revision Commission.
“We as a community have to start living within our means, and that means we cannot tax our way out of this dilemma,” said council member Anita Bonds (D-At Large). “This is not a practical approach to addressing our issue today.”
Nadeau indicated she was supportive of Parker’s proposal. But he withdrew the amendment, adding that he would look for another way to find the money for SNAP as well as increased investments in Wards 7 and 8 ahead of the council’s second vote, scheduled for May 30.
Lawmakers on Tuesday also took the first of two votes to confirm several acting agency directors appointed by Bowser, including Colleen Green at the Department of Housing and Community Development; Timothy Spriggs at the Department of Public Works; Heather McGaffin at the Office of Unified Communications (better known as the city’s 911 call center); and Lindsey Appiah as the deputy mayor for public safety and justice.
Lauren Lumpkin contributed to this report.