D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said he would keep the city’s schools running during a federal government shutdown, but would stop nonessential services like trash collection and writing parking tickets. Because the District’s budget has to be passed by Congress, the city’s spending is restricted during a shutdown. That would happen if federal lawmakers don’t come to a budget compromise by midnight Friday.
“We will be treated as if we are a federal agency, which we are not,” Gray said.
Gray said all of the city’s police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians would remain on duty and 911 services would be fully functional. The city’s public and public charter schools would stay open, he said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference detailing the city’s plan for a federal shutdown.
About 21,000 of the city’s 35,000 employees would be considered essential and would work during the shutdown, he said. Those barred from working cannot do so voluntarily or use government-issued BlackBerrys, he said.
The city would close Department of Motor Vehicles locations and suspend public works operations like street sweeping, and the city would let a week go by before collecting trash, Gray said. All of D.C.’s libraries would be closed, as would the city’s recreation centers.
The Department of Public Works would not write parking tickets during a shutdown, and the Department of Transportation would operate with a skeleton crew, only conducting emergency repairs and halting routine projects, Gray said. The D.C. Lottery would remain open.
D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi estimated that that the city could lose between $1 million to $6 million in tax dollars a week.
Several officials, including U.S. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting member of Congress, renewed calls Wednesday for federal legislation that would allow the city to remain open even during federal shutdowns.
“If there was ever an illustration of why we need budget autonomy, this is certainly it,” Gray said. “This is not an abstraction. This is a concrete example.”
