The D.C. Council on Wednesday gave initial approval to the city’s $21 billion fiscal 2025 budget in an 11-1 vote, including tax hikes that lawmakers say will help mitigate some cuts to programs that Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) had proposed in April.
The District’s slowed revenue growth since the coronavirus pandemic, paired with climbing expenditures, has once again presented a quandary for city leaders in this year’s budget cycle, reviving debates seen last year between council members and the Bowser administration on how to fund high-demand programs, including those that were previously infused with now-exhausted pandemic-era federal aid, while stabilizing city revenue.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said part of his focus while revising Bowser’s budget and considering suggestions from council committees was how the council could better protect low-income residents most vulnerable to some of the proposed cuts. This budget, he said, would help “transform peoples lives, helps the children, and continues the war on poverty.”
Among the biggest changes by the council to Bowser’s proposal:
- An increase to real property taxes on homes worth more than $2.5 million.
- An additional increase on the tax businesses must pay toward the Paid Family Leave program, on top of what Bowser proposed.
- Reallocating $25.4 million from D.C. Public Schools central office to individual schools.
- Restoring the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund.
- An overhaul of the city’s sports gambling program — using its future proceeds to pay for the baby bonds program that offers trust funds for children of low-income families.
