The stimulus windfall soon to land in D.C.’s lap will not be enough to solve the city’s formidable financial challenges, but District leaders said Wednesday that the final version will likely include hundreds of millions that could help balance the budget.
The House and Senate have passed competing versions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the Senate designated roughly $922 million for D.C. and the House nearly $1.1 billion. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi told the D.C. Council on Wednesday that roughly a third of the final figure may be available for general fund needs, like closing the estimated $455 million gap in the upcoming budget.
“The federal stimulus package will provide some needed assistance to the District to manage these revenue shortfalls,” Gandhi said during a round-table discussion on the stimulus. “However, in its final form it is unlikely to address all of the District’s fiscal challenges.”
The stimulus money will not be divvied up among various nonprofits $100,000 at a time like it is in the annual budget, said council Chairman Vincent Gray. Gray urged the roughly 50 organizations slated to testify during the round table to “look at the broader financial challenges we face” and not view the stimulus as an opportunity to appeal for cash.
The requests came anyway, for affordable housing, health care, mental health, job training and other needs.
“This is not a time to make a race for the treasury,” said at-large Councilman David Catania. “These dollars are going to be needed to help us smooth over this difficult time.”
The stimulus is not the silver bullet to D.C.’s budget problems, said City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, and “at the end of the day, we are going to have to solve our local budget problems on our own.” But there is reason for hope.
“We can’t be too gloomy,” Tangherlini said. “There is a big slug of money coming our way.”
The final figure is now being debated in a congressional conference committee. Hundreds of millions for D.C. are on the line.
The Senate bill, for example, includes $125 million for the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority’s Combined Sewer Overflow project, which the House does not. The Senate slashed billions for school and university modernization from the House measure. The House bill provides $79 billion to shore up state budgets, which the Senate reduced to $39 billion.
