As the D.C. Council was poised to vote Tuesday on a $15.5 billion budget for the coming fiscal year, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) continued to skirmish with lawmakers over two of District residents’ top priorities: housing and education.
Education funding would also increase by 3 percent per student, up from the 2.2 percent proposed by the mayor. Lawmakers hiked the increase after complaints from parents and advocates that the original budget did not keep up with rising school expenses.
The changes, which come in addition to reversals of other mayoral initiatives — such as a heavily publicized move to make the D.C. Circulator bus free — cap weeks of sparring between the mayor and council. Bowser has circulated memos and letters assailing even minor changes to her budget plan, and D.C. agencies have used their social media accounts to champion her proposals.
At stake in the debate are programs worth tens of millions of dollars, a fraction of the $8.6 billion in local spending that city officials control. (The remainder of the budget is federal or other forms of special funding.) Most of the mayor’s budget remains intact.
Nevertheless, the dynamic offers an early glimpse of how receptive lawmakers could be to Bowser’s efforts to put her stamp on the District through major initiatives during her second term.
In her first spending plan since winning reelection last year, the mayor had sought to lay the foundation for four years she says will be dedicated to sharing the city’s newfound prosperity across divides of race, class and neighborhood.
The centerpiece of Bowser’s budget was a $55 million package of initiatives to create or preserve affordable housing. They included a $30 million increase in the Housing Production Trust Fund, which provides grants and loans to developers who build affordable units, bringing annual investment in the fund to $130 million.
The mayor also sought to set up a $20 million fund to spur development of homes for middle-class residents — a measure that mirrored similar initiatives in other high-cost cities where those with moderate incomes increasingly find themselves priced out.
Both measures would have been funded by raising taxes on commercial property owners.
But while the tax increases will stay, the council has recast Bowser’s favored policies. Spending on the affordable housing trust fund will increase to $120 million rather than $130 million. The workforce housing fund will instead become an incentive program of tax abatements for developers, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) announced Monday.
City Administrator Rashad M. Young said it was too early to gauge the effects of the proposed changes. The council did not release a final draft of its modified budget until Monday evening.
However, Young said the Bowser administration was already troubled by the reduction in the affordable housing trust fund.
“As we are seeing this shape up, reducing the Housing Production Trust Fund by $10 million is a problem for us,” Young said. “Affordable housing has been the number one issue that D.C. residents talk about all across the city.”
Mendelson said at a news conference Monday afternoon that the reduction in the housing trust fund was more than offset by new investments made by the council in vouchers and other services for homeless and low-income District residents.
“Folks say we’re not doing enough, and the (housing) crisis is far bigger than what we’re able to do, and the council was able to find more,” Mendelson said.
He also said that lawmakers had addressed a top complaint about Bowser’s original budget — that it shortchanged the school system.
“There was a lot of complaint that the budget ignored public education,” he said. “We’re increasing the dollars.”
At a budget hearing last month, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee said costs are expected to rise by 4.3 percent. At that rate, neither the mayor’s nor the council’s per-pupil increases would keep pace with expenses. But the overall budget would increase at least 5.5 percent as the school system projects student growth.
Moreover, despite the overall increase in education funding, campuses that serve some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods have been told their budgets are declining because of projected decreases in enrollment.
Eboni-Rose Thompson of the Ward 7 Education Council, an advocacy group, said the D.C. Council should have directed funding to schools that need it most instead of raising per-pupil funding.
“To take that money and spread it across everyone isn’t going to fix that problem,” Thompson said. “I am very disappointed that the conversation has not moved to a more targeted and nuanced approach.”
Tuesday’s vote will be the first of two council votes on the budget. The second and final vote is scheduled for the end of May. After the budget is passed, it will be transmitted to Congress for a mandatory review period.