D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray will brief District legislators about his plans to spend a nearly $80 million windfall, but he’ll encounter a resistant council that previously balked at approving the mayor’s proposals.
In two requests issued since January, Gray pushed to spend millions on programs and agencies including public and charter schools, unemployment insurance and back pay for District employees who were furloughed in 2011.
“It is increasingly urgent [the council] take action to avoid … putting certain vital government services at risk,” said Pedro Ribeiro, a mayoral spokesman.
Tuesday’s briefing will be the latest chapter in the saga that has pitted Gray against council members, most of whom publicly rebuked the mayor in January for his first proposal to spend nearly $45 million. In turn, Council Chairman Kwame Brown refused to schedule a vote on Gray’s budget package.
By March, legislators were bickering with Gray’s office about funding for the Ward 5 special election in May, which Gray included as a part of his first proposal. The mayor’s office tried to use funding for that election as leverage to win approval for the entire package, internal emails obtained by The Washington Examiner showed, but Gray ultimately made other arrangements to pay for the election. That same month, he also sought an extra $35 million in spending.
In recent weeks, Brown agreed to schedule a vote on Gray’s proposals, and Tuesday’s briefing is part of an effort to soothe legislators’ worries.
Gray “is confident that once council members understand the critical nature of these unexpected pressures, they will act quickly to address them,” Ribeiro said.
For Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, chairman of the council’s finance and revenue committee, little has changed. He said he’s reluctant to spend the millions now while not knowing what the future will bring.
“I would like to hold that — all of it — further into the year because we don’t know what the rest of the year is going to produce,” Evans said.SClBOther council members, including Brown, still have questions they want answered before approving Gray’s proposals.
In a three-page letter to Gray obtained by The Examiner,
Brown, on behalf of council members, asked more than two-dozen questions, many of which focused on what agencies would do with extra cash.
