UPDATE: 9:05 p.m. March 10: The Republican-dominated House Rules Committee did not adopt an amendment posed by DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton that would exempt the DC Budget from their continuing resolution (CR). As sent to the House, the bill would slash the District’s current year budget. Original story below:
Republicans are proposing a more than $1 billion reduction to the District’s current $21 billion budget in their latest spending bill. The federal spending bill was released this weekend.
The District’s FY 2025 budget was confirmed by DC Council in June 2024 and dictates spending that started Oct. 1, 2024 and ends Sept. 30, 2025. Congress already approved that budget.
Congress is half a year behind in approving their own budget. The draft of the federal budget stopgap bill, or continuing resolution (CR), aims to allow ongoing spending under provisions of the federal FY2024 budget until the government can agree on an appropriations bill to fund a budget for FY2025.
Congress technically has to approve DC’s budget. But because federal budgeting is behind, they have to a bill to fill in funding gaps; that’s where they are today. The federal bill proposes funding be maintained at 2024 funding levels, a difference of $1.1 billion.
For the past twenty years, Congress has made DC’s city budget an exception to that rule in continuing resolutions. They didn’t do that this time.
That is the money that DC budgeted to spend right now —the city is six months into spending the money.
At a press conference Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser (C) said that these cuts would “not only damage but cripple the District.”
This isn’t even a devastating cut of $1 out of every $21 dollars DC will spend. It’s more like $1 for every $10.50. “The effect is we would have to cut $2 billion in the remaining six months,” said DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson at the same conference.
No Federal Savings
But, Mendelson added, this forced cut doesn’t save federal money. “These are DC dollars, these are not federal dollars,” Mendelson said, noting that the fact that DC is included in the appropriations act only to approve the District’s allocation of their own funds.
The CR treats DC like a federal agency, but it isn’t, Mendelson said; it is more like a state that has to have their budget approved by Congress.
“These are not savings for the federal government,” the DC Council Chair pointed out. “This is simply damage to the District. It cripples this District for the remainder of this year.”
“The District of Columbia raises and spends its own money, just like every other state,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said.
Most federal agencies don’t have a budget yet. The District budget was balanced and approved last year for the 28th consecutive year.
Congress can add that language back to the CR, Bowser said. “If the Congress goes through with this action, it will work against a priority that President Trump and I share,” Bowser said. “That is to make Washington DC the best, most beautiful city in the world.”
DC is already six months into the budget Republicans are proposing to cut. These cuts would impact DC immediately, forcing the District to take an axe to big agencies, Bowser said, like public safety and education. Estimates from the city indicate charter schools would have to cut $165 million, DS $185 million DC Fire (DC FEMS) $42 million and the police $67 million over the next six months, likely leading to the firing or furlough of teachers, police and fire fighters.
“I can’t imagine why anybody would want to have less public safety resources on the street,” Boswer.
The forced cuts to DC are a remarkable decision for a party that has also weighed in with concerns and criticism on public safety in the city. “It is contrary to the stated Republican goal of improving public safety law and order in the nation’s capitol, and would in fact have the opposite effect,” Norton said, noting that DC has not been treated as a federal agency in 20 years, precisely because Republicans in previous years recognized the disastrous effects of the system on the city.
“Congress should keep its hands off DC,” Norton said.
Future Impacts
It is a ding to present spending. It could have an impact on future spending as well.
DC has already forecast a $1 billion loss in revenue over the next 3 years as the Trump istration axes federal workers and downtown continues to struggle, in part due to the absence of those same workers since the pandemic.
The District’s bond rating, basically the city’s credit score, is AAA, indicating “the highest quality and lowest risk”. Moody’s, the financial researcher and authority who gave DC that score, has already said they would have to reassess DC’s rating in light of the impact of cuts to the federal force. A $1 billion cut is not likely to boost the rating.
It’s not clear if funding for Capitol One Arena will be affected. DC allocated $515 million to renovations and improvements in and the arena. That money came from the capital rather than operational budget. The capital budget is for maintaining and building infrastructure.The operational budget, which pays government operations, like employee salaries and utility bills. That is largely what is under consideration by congress.
Mayor Bowser was supposed to present the FY2026 budget to DC Council at the end of March. A decision to axe the current funds could have the domino effect of forcing a complete reconsideration of where money DC’s money is going next year.
Bowser has been trying to work with the istration —witness her acquiescence to the dismantling of Black Lives Matter (BLM) Plaza. At the press conference, she said she had reached out to the White House, asking for help. “I think they’ve indicated that it didn’t come from them,” she said of the cuts.
Bowser has connections in Congress, where Republicans are trying to the bill to avoid a government shut down Friday. DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) filed an amendment with the House rules committee, which met as you were going on air, to ask them to address these issues. She said that the continuing resolution “amounts to nothing less than fiscal sabotage of DC.
“[O]ur Congresswoman is moving an amendment to correct what I like think of it as a $1.1 billion mistake,” Bowser said. “The thing about mistakes is that they can be corrected, and there’s time to do that.”
The House Rules Committee continues to meet on the resolution as we go to press. Congress has to the CR as a bill before it takes effect; if they do not a CR by March 14, Friday the government will go into furlough. This is something to watch.
Federal Workers
It’s also not clear how that will impact assistance for Federal Workers. Because employees file for Unemployment Insurance where they work, not where they live, DC could be on the hook to cover tens of thousands of those let go by the Trump istration. According to the Mayor’s Office, 191,300 federal employees are stationed in DC; 71,226 of them are DC residents.
Last week, Bowser announced a series of initiatives to assist Feds that have been fired, establishing a dedicated website for those affected at feddc.gov and encouraging them to apply for lower health care through DC Health Link, put their kids in the DC School Lottery and access the Foreclosure Prevention Program.
The DC government asked private employers to fill out a survey outlining their job openings and employee needs to help the government help feds.
Bowser also established the Public Service Career Hub, to connect federal workers with opportunities in DC Government, opportunities that may now be closed. And she touted a job fair for fired feds to be held Frieday, March 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Gallaudet University’s Kellogg Conference Center (800 Florida Ave. NE).
So far, that job fair is still on. Get updates at fed.dc.gov
