Photo by specimenlife

Good morning, Washington. It’s a big day for the District, and a big day for Mayor Vincent Gray — today, the city’s chief executive rolls out his first budget, and it isn’t expected to be a nice one. Faced with the prospect of closing a $322 million budget gap, Gray is likely going to resort to cuts that are going to provoke many complaints from social service providers and advocates. But, as Mike DeBonis notes in the Post, even if he wanted to propose modest tax increases, the scandals that have marked his first three months in office (not to mention the ones suffered by D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown) means he wouldn’t likely have much political capital to sell them. (We’re still wondering what he’ll name this budget.) As an indication of how much selling Gray is planning on doing, he’s scheduled a press briefing at 11:30 followed by an hour-long sit-down with the Post’s editorial board. Once the budget is introduced, it faces a month of hearings in the D.C. Council and another month of tweaks before heading to the Hill for final approval in June. Keep it here during the day for updated news and analysis on the 2012 budget.

Henderson Speaks Out on Testing: In the wake of allegations of cheating on standardized tests in D.C. public schools, Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson said yesterday that city schools should back-off a little on the pressure brought to bear on students during annual testing. “I think we’ve swung the pendulum from one extreme to the other, right — from absolutely no accountability to uber-accountability that has people stressed-out and crazy and whatnot,” Henderson was quoted as saying in the Examiner. “I think we’re now finding our way — or we have to find our way — back to some happy medium.” In related news, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown isn’t planning on holding hearings on the cheating allegations just yet, otherwise content to let the D.C. Inspector General figure of what did or did not happen.

Gray Transition Fundraising Report Remains Vague: The Post reports that Mayor Vince Gray has yet to provide detailed accounting of where he got and how he spent the $900,000 collected to pay for his transition. The last report detailing donors was released in January, and only in response to repeated requests from the Post did Gray’s transition team cough up some new figures as to how the money was spent. Regardless, the Post writes, “the one-page document does not itemize vendors, employees and businesses for several large expenses. The document is also out of balance.”

Cuts to Metro Budget Delayed: Metro’s Board of Directors put off voting on a series of cuts to close a $74.2 million budget gap because new members of the Maryland delegation were still brushing up on how the system operates and what their options moving forward would be, reports the Washington Times. The board has to vote by April 14 in order to have time to take public input on possible service changes or cuts.

Smell Ya Later, National Mall Circulator: The D.C. Circulator route around the National Mall was set to resume today after a winter break, but it has been canceled altogether due to low ridership numbers. TBD’s got details.

Briefly Noted: Local congressional reps want feds to help pay for Metro safety improvements … Well, this should certainly make the 14th Street Bridge more interesting … Former All-American basketball player turns himself in on carjacking charges.

This Day in DCist: On this day in 2010, we got all sorts of excited that we’d have a baby panda on the way (we didn’t). In 2009, lawyers at the Department of Justice said that a proposal to give the District a voting seat in the House was likely unconstitutional and a debate on healthier lunches in public schools was just getting started.