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The D.C. Council yesterday gave its nod to a record $12.1 billion city budget for the 2014 fiscal year that, among other details, increases funding for low-income housing, expands library hours, introduces more arts funding, and changes the way the District taxes gasoline. The Council, in unanimous votes, approved the budget proposed two months ago by Mayor Vince Gray as well as its Budget Support Act, clearing the way for a final vote next month.
The budget aslo includes a plan that will raise rates on Circulator bus routes from $1 to as much as $2.
Several items in the budget go toward low-income and affordable housing programs. The Council voted to add an additional $1.75 million to the District’s local rent supplement voucher program, $500,000 to the emergency rental assistance program, and $3.6 million to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Funding for the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities also gets a major boost. The Council’s Budget Support Act authorizes $7 million in competitive arts grants, while the mayor’s original budget calls for the creation of a $15 million “One City Fund” to fund arts projects around the city.
“I’m delighted that the Council has passed a balanced budget that supports the priorities outlined in my own budget submission,” Gray said in a news release.
And while the unanimous votes gave Gray and Mendelson reasons to put out congratulatory statements, not everyone was pleased. Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large), who chairs the Education Committee, accused the mayor’s budget of shortchanging D.C. Public Schools, The Washington Post reports. School funding is being increased only by one percent, as opposed to overall budget growth of six percent.
“The mayor is assigning the children of our city, especially the poor ones, to a continued diminished future,” said Catania, who successfully pushed to expand summer school and limit budget cuts at schools with falling enrollment.
Mendelson also included in the budget a change to how D.C. gets revenue from gasoline. The budget passed yesterday scraps the current—and static—rate of a 23.5 cents per gallon that drivers pay directly at the pump in exchange for an 8.3 percent wholesale tax that will be passed on from distributors to customers.
