What’s scary about the current D.C. Council is that it is filled with spendthrifts. They lack an understanding of the limits of government and have a fragile grasp of the city’s economic realities.
During opening discussions last week of Mayor Vincent Gray’s $11.2 billion fiscal 2013 budget — $6 billion of which comes from local revenues — legislators made clear they want to be all things to all people: One wants to provide shelter to every homeless person who crosses the city’s borders. Another wants to give a rent subsidy to an ever-expanding group of individuals. Still another doesn’t want to implement a decades-old federal welfare mandate. And Marion Barry, the summer jobs czar, wants to employ “at least 20,000 youth for 10 weeks.”
“My view about life is you put your money where your mouth is,” Barry added.
“The city can’t afford that kind of stuff,” Jack Evans, head of the council’s Finance and Revenue Committee, told me.
He’s right.
The District faces a projected $172 million budget gap for fiscal 2013. Gray has proposed a combination of cuts and revenue enhancements. Still, his plan has several problems: Some revenue-generating assumptions are shaky; it’s hard to believe they were certified by Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi.
For example, the mayor is banking on extended hours for bars bringing in $5.3 million. He has been down the block enough times to know that dog won’t hunt.
Gray may have made cuts in entitlements; most come from a loss of federal funds, however. Instead of using the moment to redirect expectations, he submitted a “contingency” list, essentially inviting further spending by the council.
Stunningly, he has proposed increases to many agencies: 12 percent for the Office of the Secretary; 11 percent increase for the city administrator. The budget for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development would jump from $16 million to $33 million in 2013. Even Gandhi’s shop would increase 6.3 percent, bringing his budget to $135.4 million.
Evans noted the District’s local budget grew during the past decade from $3.7 billion to $6.1 billion — a 64 percent increase. Most of the money went for social programs. In 2013, nearly $4 billion of the total $11.2 billion budget — 33.4 percent — would be spent on human services.
“How can you stand up and say social services is underfunded,” asked Evans, adding there is enough money. “It is being spent inefficiently.”
District residents are the victims of that inefficiency. Gray has continued the trend, begun by his predecessor, of tax increase by fee assessment and ticketing.
He has proposed swamping the city with traffic cameras, which could generate $25 million to spend on inexplicable increases for the secretary or city administrator offices. The deceptively titled “performance meter” program would crank up parking revenue. Gray’s plan would change all the meters in the H Street Northeast corridor. The cost for parking along the same strip would jump during certain hours from 75 cents per hour to $2 per hour.
It’s a bait and switch world.
Jonetta Rose Barras’s column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
Jonetta Rose Barras’s column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
