A showdown is brewing over the District’s budget that may end up with another faceoff between D.C. officials and the U.S. Congress.
At issue: a requirement by the District’s chief financial officer for D.C.'s budget to allocate more than $200 million to be set aside for emergencies.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson is threatening to ignore the CFO, which could jeopardize the District’s finances.
The background info: Bowser's budget included cuts she said were partly due to a last-minute requirement from DC's CFO
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When D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser presented next year’s budget to the D.C. Council, she included $500 million in cuts to services, as well as some tax increases. Bowser said part of the reason she was making such deep cuts to programs such as the Early Childhood Education Pay Equity Fund was a last-minute requirement from the District's CFO, Glenn Lee, for the District to replenish its reserve funds, a cost of $217 million.
Both Bowser and Mendelson said the CFO had exceeded his authority, although Bowser reluctantly agreed to restore the money to the reserve fund.
But when Mendelson released his weekly newsletter Friday night, he said he plans to ignore the CFO's request and instead use the $217 million to keep the early childhood education fund and other services that were cut in Bowser's budget. Mendelson wrote in part: "The budget I present will restore most if not all of the pay equity fund and do so by rejecting the chief financial officer's insistence that $217 million needs to be added to the District’s already robust reserve funds. The CFO exceeded his authority when he told the mayor and me that the reserves need to be topped off now."
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So what happens next?
Bowser was noncommittal Monday when asked if she would join Mendelson in submitting a budget to Congress that was not certified as balanced by the CFO, a move that’s never been done.
"I can't answer that question because there's a lot of ... we're going to be right in the law, and I'm going to have some consideration with my team before I make that decision," Bowser said.
D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie was a bit more definitive in his answer.
"In this instance, there happens to be a disagreement between the chairman and the CFO, and I tend to agree with the chairman on this point," he said.
If the CFO does not change his requirement and Mendelson follows through with his threat to send the budget to Congress for approval without the CFO's certification, it could open the door for the Republican-led House to reject the District's budget in much the same way that Congress blocked the District’s crime bill from taking effect.
"Mayor Bowser and Chairman Mendelson do not have to replenish $217 million in D.C. reserve funds by Fiscal Year 2025," the CFO's office said in a statement. It went on to say, "A full replenishment of reserves must occur before Fiscal Year 2028."
News4 reached out to the District's attorney general for comment but was declined.
