The D.C. Council does a great job of spending money — as long as it’s your money. A majority of the 13 members have rarely met an agency or a government job or a city service they didn’t want to fund with OPM, as in other people’s money. Just so we start the budgeting season with a measure of honesty, let’s agree that most of the tax money that will fund D.C.’s $5.3 billion spending plan for 2011 comes from residents west of Rock Creek Park. I’m just putting that out there, as they say. And I’m asking: What do they get for their hard-earned taxes?
Starting Tuesday, the city council will begin forming the budget for the next fiscal year. Revenues are down; costs are up. Two obvious choices: Cut government or raise taxes. That’s it. Federal bucks will preserve the school budget, but everything else is in play.
The council likes to play with our tax dollars. How else are we to explain the fact that our local government has grown 65 percent since 2003, according to the council’s finance and revenue committee.
Outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed a budget that will trim $188 million from the budget without raising taxes. Seems to me the city council’s job is to adhere to that bottom line: If any council member wants to put money back in to preserve a pet program, she or he must find another program to cut. Make it a zero sum game: Do not raise taxes. Period.
To survive, every line item should pass a test based on whether and how much it delivers a service directly to residents. Hint: Any agency that has the word “liaison” in it has to go.
Getting down to basics, the council should preserve and even enhance public safety, public education and public works. Keep the streets safe and well-organized; educate the children.
When it comes to cops, first do no harm — in fact, it might be time to add. Fenty cut and the council accepted $30.7 million in cuts to the police department last fiscal year. We should have a sworn force of 4,250. We have accepted a diminished force of fewer than 4,000. Perhaps that explains why the FBI recently declared D.C. the fourth-most dangerous big city in the country.
Fenty proposes nearly $8 million more in cuts to cops. Training and recruitment are out.
“I am very concerned,” says Phil Mendelson, chair of the council’s judiciary committee. “The police department is working pretty well. “It’s a core function. We don’t want to put the department on the defensive.”
Props to Phil, who’s showing a new appreciation for the men and women in blue.
I would go one step further: Find funds to put more cops on the street. Investments in safe streets and strong schools will pay off by making D.C. an attractive place to live for all of those taxpayers we will need to fund the council members’ pet projects.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
