Final Budget Vote Closes Out Productive, Consensus Budget Season

At its most recent Legislative Meeting, the Council passed the Budget Support Act (BSA) with the second of two needed votes, completing its major budget work for the year.

The District’s budget is actually comprised of multiple pieces of legislation. The two most attention-getting components are the Local Budget Act and the Budget Support Act. The Local Budget Act (passed twice by the Council at its two prior Legislative Meetings) includes the dollars-and-cents elements of the budget. The Budget Support Act includes the legislative language necessary to put those quantitative figures into effect. Passage of the District’s budget by the Council is on a tight deadline, based, per the Home Rule Charter, on when the mayor introduces her budget proposal. Both budget bills get the first of two required Council votes just prior to the Charter-imposed 56-day deadline, but while the Local Budget Act gets a second vote on or just prior to the 70-day deadline, the second vote on the Budget Support Act usually waits days or weeks. And with that second vote, the budget process wraps up for the year.

All in all, the Budget Support Act is quirky critter. It is a critical budget bill not governed by broader budget deadlines. It is, as its name indicates, designed as a “support” measure, but is in reality often itself a main attraction. And much as the budget itself, by definition, runs the full broad scope of all the District government does, the Budget Support Act can also run the gamut, capturing many diverse subjects, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

With the “how much” elements of the budget wrapped up at the two prior Legislative Meetings, at the most recent meeting, it was simply a matter of nailing down several final aspects of the actual “how” budgetary changes would be implemented legislatively. The final vote on the Budget Support Act provided that clarity.

Sports Betting and Baby Bonds

As was done last year, the Council restored funding for the “Baby Bonds” program (via the Child Wealth Building Act), designed to promote the creation of inter-generational wealth in communities where there is need. This is done by providing the families of newly-born children with $1,000 a year through age 18, for use towards specific wealth-building ends. In an effort to ensure the program is not continuously defunded by the mayor each year, this year’s budget dedicates funds from the expansion of sports betting to new mobile betting platforms to this noble end.

When sports betting was first legalized nationwide by the Supreme Court, the Council allowed the standalone Gambet platform to handle all betting. After years of poor performance and dissatisfaction with Gambet, FanDuel was recently allowed to take over District sports betting. Because of its revenue implications, a pending piece of standalone legislation which would have opened up sports betting to multiple platforms was folded into the budget measures the Council has now approved. At its most recent meeting, the Council added language to the Budget Support Act to ensure that the sports betting market expansion would not harm the many small businesses that are currently home to, and reliant on the revenue from, sports betting kiosks, which are now explicitly protected.

Additional Changes

In another amendment to the Budget Support Act offered and accepted at the most recent Legislative Meeting, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice would be required to annually recalibrate which areas are included in the Safe Passage Safe Blocks program, using school incident and community violence data, as well as incidents that are not co-located but that are nonetheless linked repeatedly to specific schools. The rationale for including new areas, or removing other areas, from the list would need to be delineated in the annual report.

In another adjustment to the Budget Support Act, a provision regarding new funding for an additional staff position at each Ward 7 and Ward 8 public school was clarified to emphasize the importance of flexible scheduling, and to encourage the involvement in each school’s Local School Advisory Team in determining how the new funds included in this year’s budget will be spent.

In somewhat of a placekeeping measure until the Council can return to the topic prior to the start of the new fiscal year, the Budget Support Act included language lowering the guaranteed salary for early childhood educators with bachelor’s degrees. In its budget, the Council returned most, but not all, of the funding the mayor’s budget request cut from the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, and the task force must now provide its recommendations to the Council on how best to address the funding reduction. The reduced salary language in the Budget Support Act will likely be modified or removed once the task force deliberates on this issue and reports back to the Council on potential alternative means of reaching the lower spending number..

In addition to passing the Budget Support Act, the Council also passed an emergency version of the measure. Emergency bills require a two-thirds vote and go into effect immediately, without waiting for Congressional review. They also must not have a fiscal impact, meaning that those elements included in the emergency bill either had no cost or were funded in advance of the emergency bill’s passage. This will allow certain elements of the Budget Support Act to go into effect earlier than upon expiration of the Congressional review period, and/or the October 1 start of the new fiscal year.

A non budget-related measure also passed on an emergency basis at the most recent Legislative Meeting would allow liquor licensed establishments to remain open for expanded hours during the Summer Olympics, Paralympics, Art All Night, and Dine All Night events. The dates covered between these multiple events would be July 26 to August 11, August 28 to September 8, and September 19 to September 29. During those times, alcoholic beverages can be served by participating businesses between the hours of 6AM and 4AM. Additionally, expanded indoor and outdoor entertainment can be provided during the Art All Night or Dine All Night events. Participating businesses must pay a fee, and file notice of their participation in these expanded hour programs with the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Board as well as with the Metropolitan Police Department.

The Council’s next Legislative Meeting will be held on July 9.