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In case you haven't been paying attention to the ins and outs of the D.C. Council's recently passed FY 2010 budget, here are some of the highlights. Also see Tim Craig, Gary Emerling and Michael Neibauer for more coverage.
- More parking tickets! Yes, the D.C. Council is banking on drawing in an additional $12 million or so from increased parking enforcement zealotry. Not only will the fines for violating alternate-side street sweeping rules go up to $40, the Council is also calling for 12 additional sweepercam vehicles in order to literally blanket the city and be able to catch every single parking violator in town. They're estimating the increased vigilance will lead to over 230,000 parking tickets in the next fiscal year.
- As we noted yesterday, the Council lined up for a showdown with Michelle Rhee over enrollment estimates. With $27 million for the DCPS in the balance, this one isn't going to go away quietly.
- Back in: Emancipation Day, charter school facilities, the Offices on Aging and Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs, and pre-kindergarten funding. Tossed out: the streetlight maintenance fee and 911 tax, and $20 million from the mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program.
- Victor Reinoso got spanked: the Council voted to reduce funding for the unpopular Deputy Mayor for Education from $4 million to $778,000.
- Many of Fenty's proposed job cuts were kept, with the exception of dozens of parking enforcement officers and school crossing guards.
- No more sales tax holidays. The Council nixed the popular back-to-school and holiday-season sales tax break periods, a decision locally owned retail stores aren't going to be happy with.
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While I'm loathe to agree with the Council on anything, I'm really enjoying how they're giving Mayor Bullethead the cold shoulder and castrating Reinoso's office. So much for co-operation. Maybe a certain globetrotting mayor needs to spend more time currying favor with the Council and less time lounging around the fleshpots of Bahrain with his mysterious oil-soaked Middle Eastern pervert friends.
Hightlights?
It was originally supposed to read Council Budget Bullets. But in an effort to tide the violence in the streets of DC, DCist opted to change it to Council Budget Wizards, but that wasn't appropo, so they went with Highlights instead.
Honest, Abe? Or are you Pollin our legs?
Makes perfect sense to get rid of the tax holidays when local businesses are struggling to keep their doors open, pay their business, property, employee, and sales taxes. Not to mention allowing people struggling with tighter budgets to save on paying the DC sales tax.
How about a lookey-loo on how the Council's budget has increased significantly over the past few years. Vince Gray & Co. are great at taking a chainsaw to the Mayor's budget; how are they when it comes to their own budgets?
Yeah, and I'm glad to see those Nats tickets aren't being cut either.
Maybe the Council can look into renting their parking spaces at market rate, the proceeds going to balance the budget. Or maybe they should just rent Jim Graham for kids' parties. As "Goatse the Clown" I hear he does some amazing tricks with a blowtorch and a can of beans.
Concur. Slap a few polka dots onto that Beetle convertible, and he's good to go.
Didn't we already have a sales tax holiday back in January? Cause the guy selling Obama sweatshirts on my block over inauguration weekend wasn't too big on offering receipts. I also have reason to believe his products were unlicensed.
Man, this whole city council DC thang is so outta whack.
What the heck are they doing for me...a local Joe. All I want is a 25 cent cup of Joe. A nice piece of pie. A couple of 24 hour McDees or Jack-off in a box. 24 hour Metro service. Moderately priced disease-free hookers.
A new Doc Johnson Marital Aid store. A Waffle Shop.
A White Castle. A fake boardwalk type video arcade. A dress-code free bowling alley. A clean river. A real mayor.
You're my hero...
Can't wait for more parking tickets. Maybe they will start ticketing all the illegally parked "police" vehicles in my neighborhood. There is gold sitting there.
Also, how about using some of those street-sweeper camera-trucks to ticket people parked in bus lanes, bike lanes and places where parking is not allowed during rush hours?
didn't I read/hear that the parking tix enforcers were the worst for fraudulent overtime? I'm ok w/ the tix (I don't get many and only when I park illegally, why the ruffled feathers, folks?) but I'd rather feel confident the money was making it out of the agency. PreK and charter facilities make me happy... cutting the summer programs can't come soon enough.
All in all, I'm cool with what I read here.
While I support the right of Pacific Islanders to engage in relationships outside of marriage, I don't see why public money is needed to support it.
Damn those rent-seeking Austronesians!
you'd think the natives of tuvalu would have more respect for the traditional family, eh?
How about instead of paying people to direct traffic to attempt gridlock downtown during the evening rush we pay people to issue $100 fines to anyone who blocks the box?
Why are we being so nice to the MD drivers by hiring a babysitter for them to tell them if their car will fit across the road.
I thought I had read on here a long time ago that blocking the Box was a $500 fine. It never gets enforced though since actual officers would have to pull over the cars and actually have to dig out that long lost ticket book.
It seems traffic and budget could be helped if they had even a few officers handing out Block the Box tickets during morning and evening rush hours.
Still in the budget: $2.1 million dollars of your money to subsidize the operating costs of the parking garage at the DCUSA project in Columbia Heights....that's right folks, you're paying for that parking garage whether you have a car or not, and whether you use it not....Thanks Grahamstander...
Gee they could make a couple of bucks selling old fire engines and ambulances to some Caribbean island third-world country.
Did they accept Fenty's proposal to deep-size the biennial vehicle "safety" inspections? You know, the kind where you pass if you leave an engraved portrait of Andrew Jackson (or better yet, Ulysses S. Grant) in plain view.