Services for the poor and the police department were targeted for deep cuts in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposal to fill a $188 million budget gap, but no District resident would escape the pain under a shrinking city budget. Fenty’s proposal calls for slashing spending by $161.2 million and shifting cash from several funds to bring $27 million into the operating budget.
“A lot of the cuts fall heavily on folks already hurt by the recession,” said Ed Lazere, executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. But reductions like the slicing of library funding and the removal of funding for a program designed to bring healthy food choices into the city’s schools means “it hurts all around,” Lazere said.
The D.C. Council may cut the budget further. Mayor-elect Vincent Gray said Monday that he wants to find an additional $50 million that could be saved to offset an even larger budget shortfall expected in the next fiscal year.
Among the hardest-hit city agencies are the police department and child family services.
Fenty wants to reduce the police department’s budget by $8 million by cutting into training and recruiting costs, and by better management of a contract for running the city’s speed and red light cameras.
Police union chief Kris Baumann said less spending on recruiting will likely reduce the force’s size as officers retire and aren’t replaced.
Child family services would be cut by nearly $6 million. A $2.6 million chunk of that comes from a 50 percent reduction in subsidies to grandparents designed to keep children with their families and out of the foster care system.
The proposal keeps funding for the city’s schools at the same level as previously budgeted with the help of increased federal funding.
Fenty did not call for increased taxes. But he wants to drain $7 million from a fund designed to provide tax cuts to small businesses when work is being done on roads in front of their doors. He also proposed a $1 fee increase at the city’s Metro station parking lots. The council will now consider Fenty’s plan, and counter with its proposal within two weeks.
“We made some very tough but necessary decisions in developing this budget proposal,” Fenty said in a statement. “These are tough economic times for residents across the city and we cannot afford to ask them to shoulder a bigger financial burden.”
