Photo by elliotmitchell.

The District’s spending plan for the coming year faces a first vote this week, and it looks like D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown has maneuvered to put his own stamp on the budget submitted by Mayor Vince Gray to the D.C. Council in early April.

When Gray submitted the 2012 budget, he made significant cuts to social service programs and proposed a number of tax increases — including one on District residents making more than $200,000 a year — as a way to close an estimated $322 million budget gap. His budget didn’t seem to make anyone happy, and the Council quickly got around to making a number of changes, including scrapping a number of proposed new taxes and restoring funding for homeless services and other social programs. Some of the most contentious debate amongst councilmembers was reserved for a proposal to increase the cost of Residential Parking Permits and lower rates for on-street parking meters, though. Ward 6’s Tommy Wells defended the proposal over the weekend.

Brown is set to present the amended budget to the Council this week, and a first vote is scheduled for Wednesday. What’s clear is that despite some public support, Gray’s proposed tax increase on the District’s highest earners is off the table, as is a proposed tax on theater and live performances. Instead, as the Post’s Mike DeBonis reports, Brown is likely to side with a tax on municipal bonds issued by other jurisdictions, allowing him to restore roughly $25 million for social services cut by Gray.

Despite Brown’s move to restore some funds for social services, many advocates for the programs aren’t happy with the budget that will likely emerge this week. The Save Our Safety Net coalition, which organized a lobbying day at the D.C. Council last week, sent out an alert today warning that even with Brown’s partial restorations, many social services are still facing shortfalls — $32 million in all. The group is planning to hit the Wilson Building again tomorrow at noon, hoping to shore up support for Gray’s tax increase on the city’s highest earners. (Gray reportedly tried to get himself the seven votes to keep the tax increases in, much to Brown’s chagrin.)

Those same advocates are concerned that Brown only proposed the tax on municipal bonds as a way to attract votes — and that he’ll yank it once new revenue estimates come in this June. (It happened in 2002, when the Council voted to impose a tax on out-of-state municipal bonds, only to back-pedal under intense lobbying.) During a recent budget roundtable, Brown and Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) noted that a recovering economy might bring the District anywhere from $20 to $90 million in additional revenue for 2012. A good chunk of that will go into replenishing the city’s savings account, but Brown and Evans likely want to use it as a means to head off any potential tax increases. The Post’s editorial board remarked over the weekend that it seemed odd for the Council to be hitching a budget to revenue that is currently only estimated. (This is another reason not having budget autonomy sucks — the Council has to submit its budget to Congress without knowing exactly how much money it will or won’t have.)

The details will only come to light once Brown actually puts out his amended budget plan, which a coalition of 40 organizations is asking that he do at least 24 hours before the council vote so that the public can see what’s proposed and have a chance to respond.