Photo by Cycle The Ghost Round.

Good morning, Washington. Today’s when the city’s budget process gets real: this morning, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown will convene a meeting of the Council for a “Councilmember’s Budget Discussion,” in which we should get a comprehensive idea of the body’s stance on Mayor Vince Gray’s 2012 budget proposal. The meeting is also being billed as a bit of a last chance for social services advocates to make their voices heard regarding the sizable chunk of money which will be diverted away from such services. Various activists for social service funding are expected to show up at city hall this morning — many have been asking people to contact their Councilmembers directly regarding cuts for several weeks now. In other budget news, the Jack Evans, who chairs the Council’s finance committee, has recommended the Council repeal Mayor Vince Gray’s inclusion of combined reporting — in simple terms, the closure of a tax loophole for large corporations who hide profits from District taxation. The Council is scheduled to vote on the budget on May 25.

D.C., Tenants Swindled By Developers: A must-read from the Post, which investigates the money made by real estate speculators thanks to a $3.5 million deal the city struck with East of the River Community Development Corp., who quickly declared bankruptcy after said deal was made. “The District’s East of the River project involved an inexperienced developer that cut an ill-fated deal with savvy speculators under the watch of a local housing agency that failed to protect the government’s investment,” the Post reports, while tenants in one building had to “bundle…children in blankets and keep boiling water on the stove, hoping the steam would heat the apartment, which had no working furnace.”

Whiting’s Salary Still In Doubt: Was Gray appointee Cherita Whiting making $98,000 or $65,000 per year? The Washington Times sure is having a tough time trying to figure that out. The paper has been unable to confirm Whiting’s salary through the Mayor’s office, the Department of Parks and Recreation or Councilmembers overseeing the agency, all of which refused to provide pay stubs or comment on the matter — and the Mayor’s office even requested that the Times retract the story. Of course, Whiting’s failure to appear at a hearing last Friday is surely only fanning the flames of speculation.

IMF Chief, Georgetown Resident, Arrested: In case you missed it over the weekend, Georgetown resident and head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested in New York for allegedly sexually assaulting a maid inside a Times Square hotel. The Daily News stopped by Strauss-Kahn’s Dumbarton Street NW home over the weekend; no one was answering the door, but “a black BMW SUV with diplomatic plates sat in the driveway.”

Briefly Noted: DCPS special education chief to resign…Teen who drove slain AU professor’s car gets probation…UnitedHealthcare insurance no longer covering Washington Hospital Center and Georgetown University Hospital…Teens killed in car accidents in MoCo, Fairfax…Breaking: getting into one of the nation’s best high schools is really hard…That’s one tricky hyphen.

This Day in DCist: In 2010, we stopped by the Dragon Boat Festival and chatted with a local farmers’ market expert; the year before, Kegasus had not yet arrived to save the Preakness, and the penalty for eating on the Metro became “an overlay of a red band around your torso and a sloppy editing cut into oblivion as a woman in a pantsuit flails her arms around without reason.”