WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — By a unanimous vote, DC City Council has sent the District’s $19.7 billion 2024 budget. The move restores some spending cuts proposed by the mayor as the city prepares for leaner financial times.
This was the council’s second vote on the budget this month as dictated by the city’s Home Rule Act.
Given Mayor Muriel Bowser’s desire to grow business and residential traffic downtown to revitalize it following the pandemic, she has called for a more austere budget that plans for tougher economic forecasts in the future.
But council members have chosen to restore funds to areas such as DC Public Schools as well as housing and social safety net programs.
“This budget proposal focuses on supporting education, housing, public safety, and downtown recovery,” said Council Chairman Phil Mendelson in a statement after the first vote earlier this month. “We did our best to provide funding for many of the council member’s priorities and to make sure this budget truly is a fair shot for District residents.”
Council members voted to approve $23.9 million in additional funds for DC Public Schools and $15 million for charter schools.
They also support $35 million going toward emergency rental assistance funding and $40 million for 230 permanent housing vouchers to last over several years.
Other spending priorities that the council prioritized included $3.9 million for flexible teacher scheduling, $3 million for retail grants for downtown businesses, and $18.6 million to provide legal representation for residents facing eviction and denial of benefits.
But much of Tuesday’s hearing centered on several council amendments to the budget that included funding for items like recreation centers in a city that has shuttered several, city officials said.
Councilman Trayon White, who proposed and received passage of six amendments that included renovations to schools to provide more recreation space, said the District needs these investments.
“We have a number of organizations who have nowhere to go to do constructive programming with our kids,” White said. “In Ward 8, we’ve closed down over nine recreation centers in a ward that has the most shortage out of anywhere in Washington DC. And I go to the funerals and I go to the vigils and I go to the crime scenes. And you know what people say? I don’t have nowhere safe to send my child.”
White said the council is always talking about “equity” but that he believes that “the budget is a moral document that we should put our money where our heart is.”
But getting a budget from the mayor “has been a challenge for all council members to try and put money,” he said.