Mayor-elect Vince Gray and the D.C. Council he still leads as chairman are expecting to get on Monday the proposals on how to close a now $187 million budget gap. Then they’ll have less than two weeks to comb through the budget before voting on it.
“We have little time to deal with very significant challenges,” Gray said Monday morning as he laid out for the public the financial crisis the District faces.
In September, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi announced that the city faced a $175 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1. About $100 million came from declining revenue and another $75 million from overspending. That number, Gray said, has now climbed to $187 as revenue estimates continue to fall.
Mayor Adrian Fenty submitted his final version of the budget to the CFO’s office. The CFO has the remainder of Monday to determine whether the numbers add up and will then pass it to the council.
Gray said the council will hold a public hearing on Nov. 30. On Dec. 7, the council will vote on the dollar amount they will save and on Dec. 21 the council will have a final vote on the cuts and revenue increases they’ll need to pass in order to reach that number.
