Nearly $100 million slated for the D.C. Public Schools is tied up in a budget tug of war between D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray and Mayor Adrian Fenty, leaving school consolidations, buyouts and pay raises in limbo.
What started seven months ago as a dispute between the District’s two top elected officials over DCPS maintenance funding now affects about $93 million pegged for the schools, for transportation improvements and for the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission as it attempts to stave off bankruptcy.
The council won’t release the money until Fenty transfers $33.5 million from DCPS to the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, headed by Allen Lew, for school maintenance. Fenty hasn’t been willing to release more than $26 million, which he claims is the actual maintenance budget.
The dispute dates back to October, when the council allowed Lew’s agency to take on school maintenance with the stipulation that the maintenance budget shift with the responsibility.
In December, when the council approved the $182.6 million fiscal 2008 supplemental budget, it specified that none of the money would be released until the $33.5 million was transferred. In February, Fenty proposed moving $26 million.
“The Council, clearly and unambiguously, declares that when it passes legislation with the number $33.5 million, it means $33.5 million, not $26,017,958,” council members unanimously declared in a resolution adopted last month.
“We’re definitely going to have to work out a resolution to this,” said William Singer, Fenty’s budget chief. “Obviously without the money DCPS would be in a very bad financial position.”
Lew’s agency has spent more than $120 million this fiscal year on maintenance projects, a spokesman said.
On Tuesday, the council agreed to release millions of dollars within the supplemental budget pegged for nonprofits, for studies, for public safety and other community needs.
But it still will not release the $29 million to correct facilities and central office “inefficiencies,” $7.5 million for additional instructional materials, $3.1 million for DCPS central administration buyouts, $16 million for school pay raises, $3.6 million for school consolidations, $12 million for street and alley paving, and $2 million for the sports commission.
No schools initiatives have yet been threatened by the funding holdup, said Mafara Hobson, DCPS spokeswoman.
“Nothing has been halted on our end,” she said.
