The District’s chief financial officer warned D.C. leaders that the city is at risk of violating its spending laws if legislators and Mayor Vincent Gray don’t act quickly to address about $18 million in potential overspending, a letter obtained by The Washington Examiner shows.
In the missive dated April 2, District CFO Natwar Gandhi told Gray and Council Chairman Kwame Brown that while the city will ultimately have to respond to about $83 million in spending pressures, “several must be addressed immediately to avoid violating the District’s Anti-Deficiency law.”
The law was put into place a decade ago to help D.C. avoid overspending in the aftermath of its time in federal receivership.
In his letter last week, though, Gandhi said that potential overspending of up to $9 million for the city’s unemployment compensation program and $9.4 million for charter schools has placed the District in immediate jeopardy of breaking that law.
Gray’s office says the surefire solution is for the D.C. Council to pass the mayor’s broader supplemental budget requests, which add up to about $80 million. Indeed, Gray’s proposals would address both of the immediate needs Gandhi cited, but they’d also pay for another $61 million of the mayor’s ideas. Those proposals include paying D.C. employees for four furlough days they took in 2011 (that idea would cost about $19 million) and a $25 million boost for D.C. Public Schools.
Whether legislators will agree, though, is an open question and has been for months.
In January, most councilmembers told Gray in a letter they weren’t interested in quickly spending the extra money the city had collected, and Brown refused to schedule a vote on the matter.
Last month, though, Brown announced the council would weigh Gray’s proposals at its April 17 meeting.
In a bid to shore up support ahead of the vote, Gray is scheduled to brief lawmakers at 3 p.m. on Tuesday about his plans.
For his part, Gandhi is officially remaining mute on what he thinks city leaders should do. “Addressing the remaining fiscal year 2012 spending pressures as soon as possible… would be the most fiscally prudent approach to maintaining a balanced budget,” Gandhi wrote. “This would ensure the affected agencies do not violate the District’s Anti-Deficiency law.”
