Most District workers will be forced to take a four-day furlough and social services will be slashed, but taxpayers won’t be asked to shoulder more of a burden in Mayor-elect Vince Gray’s council-supported budget fix that totals nearly $230 million in spending cuts and revenue increases. “We’re pretending the Grim Reaper is not at the door,” Gray said as he battled Tuesday against two proposals to raise taxes, arguing they would bring the District back to the tax-and-spend 1990s that ended with the city under a federally appointed financial control board. “The Grim Reaper is at the door, and I will not sit here and be part of any exercise that results in a control board coming back to the District of Columbia.”
The District’s financial state is dire. On late Tuesday, the council passed Gray’s budget fix to close a $188 million gap. The plan also allows $40 million to be set aside for a potential savings.
But that’s just a slim portion of the $440 million shortfall Gray said he now expects the District to face in fiscal 2012, which starts on Oct. 1, 2011. Although Gray and seven other council members shot down tax increases on Tuesday, he and other members said they’ll be open to them in the spring when they work on the 2012 budget.
Items saved from Fenty’s ax in Gray’s budget fixes
| » $4.5 million for a program that puts healthy food options in D.C. schools |
| » $6.3 million for adult job training |
| » $1 million for early childhood education |
| » $375,000 for a deputy mayor for public safety in Gray’s administration |
The four-day furloughs, which will be required for “non-essential personnel” on days that would otherwise be holidays, will save the city $19.3 million, Gray said. Firefighters and police are not be included, but the mayor, council members and their staffs will be.
However, the biggest cuts are to social services, most of which were proposed by Mayor Adrian Fenty and then kept in the budget by Council Chairman Gray. “I think the way the budget is structured … pits the rich against the poor,” Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells said. Among the deepest cuts is a plan to phase out over the next five years a program that helps 8,000 of the city’s most needy families. That cut has not yet received the council’s approval, but it is expected to be passed later this month. If the cost-saving measure is passed, the program will immediately be slashed by 20 percent.
At-large Councilman Michael A. Brown said he hopes to find a way in the next round of budgeting in the spring to restore funding to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
“When we work on the 2012 budget we’ll be dealing with a council that’s more open, from my standpoint,” said Brown, who supported raising taxes this time around. Brown expects the budget gap to reach a half-billion dollars next year. “It’s a ridiculous number and we’ll see a different vote count come tax increase time for 2012.”
