The D.C. Council on Monday challenged Mayor Adrian Fenty to justify a 2009 spending plan that throws millions at nonprofits, raises fees and taxes to generate more than $100 million and dips deeply into crucial reserve funds.
Council members were most critical of Fenty’s proposed $10 million earmark for Ford’s Theatre, an award destined for a National Park Service-owned venue undergoing a corporate-sponsored $40 million overhaul.
“No amount of discussion can convince me and some of my colleagues that we should be funding federal projects,” Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry said during the mayor’s annual budget briefing.
Fenty received the council’s cautious affirmation when he announced his $8.7 billion budget less than two weeks ago, for keeping growth below 1 percent and prioritizing education and affordable housing.
Monday’s six-hour hearing was an opportunity for legislators to put on the table what they’ll be targeting over the next two months of budget deliberations.
Council Chairman Vincent Gray charged that the mayor’s budget “has eliminated any margin for error at a time when the financial markets and the national economy are very unstable.” The spending plan lays out at least $200 million more for new programs, Gray said, which the mayor offsets by dipping into reserves and the general fund balance.
“I do not want to revisit the past by raising taxes and borrowing from our reserves to fill a hole in a budget that we all could have seen coming,” Gray said.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh said the mayor’s plan to raise $7.2 million by doubling the cost of riding in a D.C. ambulance is “of great concern.”
At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson signaled his intention to kill a proposed increase to the E-911 fee. Gray and Mendelson both complained the mayor’s budget doesn’t provide enough tax relief for small businesses.
The Ford’s Theatre grant, the largest award in Fenty’s proposed 2009 budget, is important “to the continued economic development of this once-blighted” Penn Quarter community, the mayor said. Ford’s Theatre closed last August for a multiyear modernization, one that has netted $8.5 million from the federal government and $5 million from ExxonMobil.
