Budget and Minimum Wage Bills Receive Final and Unanimous Council Approval

From a culinary standpoint, while the fall and winter lend themselves to large platters of hearty food, the spring and summer call out for smaller plates of cool, crisp, fresh fare.

Similarly, at the Council, the cold months full of less frequent, multi-hour Legislative Meetings have yielded to a spring and summer of more plentiful, briefer, but no less impactful, sessions.

This Legislative Meeting was the third of five to be held across the final seven weeks leading up to the Council’s summer recess. And while it clocked in at just over a half hour, and saw virtually no debate among Councilmembers, it included two critical votes.

One such vote was the necessary second vote on the Budget Support Act (BSA). While the other budget measures passed at earlier Legislative Meetings set the broad lines for the government’s financial action, the BSA delves more into the details. Between the two votes on this measure, one substantial change was made to the BSA: $20 million in unspent FY2016 funds was set aside to fund the implementation of the Universal Paid Leave Act of 2016.

The other key vote at this Legislative Meeting was the second and final Council approval of legislation to increase the minimum wage to $15 and the tipped wage to $5 by 2020.

At the earlier Committee of the Whole meeting, while a broader procurement measure passed unanimously, the portion of that bill intended to restrict political campaign donors from contracting with the District was removed by a tight vote.  Also approved at the meeting were a raft of nominations, and a supplemental report aimed at fleshing out and documenting discussions that led to the homeless shelter measure passed the prior week.  Two measures were also introduced at the meeting: a ceremonial street renaming and a bill to regulate the landscape architecture industry.

For a full list of votes taken at today’s meeting, please click here.