With the Ward 8 seat still vacant, the D.C. Council inched closer to finalizing a Fiscal Year 2026 budget that restores more than $100 million in programming cuts proposed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D).
Some advocates, however, say this budget doesn’t go far enough, especially as it relates to the tens of thousands of D.C. residents who will lose health care coverage. That’s why demands continue for the council to increase revenue via taxes on the District’s highest earners.
“Although there were some small changes made, it’s still just really a negative effect on that group of people,” said Nicole Dooley, supervising attorney in the public benefits unit of Legal Aid DC, “when [the D.C. Council] could use revenue raisers to restore that coverage or maintain that coverage for the people who depend on it.”
In her role at Legal Aid DC, Dooley represents recipients of Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, TANF and other public benefits. On the evening of Sunday, July 13, she counted among those waiting to see if the council would build upon changes the council’s Committee on Health made to Bowser’s budget proposal.
As she recounted, the version of the Fiscal Year 2026 budget approved by the council on Monday, for the most part, maintains the health committee’s adjustments. The only significant changes involve the extension of the Medicaid enrollment deadline from August to October for D.C. residents between the ages of 21 and 26. There’s also a restructuring of the D.C. Alliance Healthcare Plan to make it fee-for-service, as part of what D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) called an effort to be cost-effective.
On Sunday, Mendelson told reporters that dental coverage for residents moved to the Basic Healthcare Plan would be funded via the exchange reserves. However, the council would ultimately maintain Bowser’s proposal to narrow Medicaid eligibility for more than 25,000 District residents.
“My recollection is the cost associated with that was way too high,” Mendelson told reporters on Sunday. “When we had our work session on July 2, I went around the room and asked members for priorities and then decided what we collectively decided was that members would submit to the Budget Office priorities, which we then circulated.”
Dooley maintains that, without adequate health care coverage, residents will experience hardship in other areas of their life.
“Then they rack up [emergency room] bills. They have to divert some of their limited income to that, and then they may not be able to afford their rent,” Dooley told The Informer. “They may not be able to afford food, so it really does kind of trickle down to every other part of someone’s life when they lose health insurance coverage.”
There’s Still a Question of How to Generate Revenue
During work sessions earlier this month, council members scoured the budget for cost savings, and then, with the guidance of committee chairs, reallocated those savings to restore and increase funding for programs.
With this year’s budget season delays, the council deliberated on the budget closer to the end of the 2025 fiscal year. Mendelson said, with that shift in time, he and his colleagues had a clearer indication of where to find savings across District agencies.
“You’re not gonna find that there’s a big program that has been cut by $100 million in order to fund these improvements,” Mendelson said. “What you’re gonna see is there were little cuts….We looked at where we could squeeze more.”
In her proposal, Bowser perturbed environmentalists by gutting the Green Bank and repealing net zero, among other things. However, the council restored $15 million in funding for environmental programs, including the Green Bank and the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund.
Between first and second reading, scheduled for July 28, the council will further deliberate on how to spread that allocation among the programs, Mendelson said.
The council also eliminated Bowser’s sanctuary city repeal, and, amid the mayor’s attempt to place unhoused families in congregate housing, approved a version of the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act that includes privacy protection for families in congregate housing.
The Fiscal Year 2026 budget doesn’t eliminate Bowser’s proposed repeal of the child tax credit. The council will instead take up that matter on a separate occasion.
On the road to a balanced budget, the council allocated $6 million in revenue collected from the tourism recovery district tax to fund Destination DC, all while delaying Bowser’s proposed elimination of the sunset on the tourism district fee from April 2026 to late September 2027. The budget, approved by the council on the first reading, also strikes down Bowser’s proposal for 80 cents-per-night hotel fees while adjusting D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles registration fees and retaining the funding— more than $800 million via debt service— for the redevelopment of RFK Campus.
On Sunday, Mendelson made note that the Fiscal Year 2026 budget that would ultimately be approved by the council creates a funding mechanism for RFK campus redevelopment via funds collected from the ballpark fee, and not, as Bowser intended, through the use of interest accrued.
“We’re going to use the ballpark fee to pay for debt service in Fiscal Year 28 and 29, and we’ll probably end up borrowing something like $520 million,” a council staffer said. “It’s a matter of interest rates. It’s a matter of capitalized interest. It’s a matter of just sort of philosophy in these types of things where if you have a revenue source for repayment, you should use that source for repayment.”
During the latter part of last week, D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) circulated a proposal for a graduated surcharge on wealth-generated income surpassing $350,000, $500,000 and $1 million. On Monday, he hinted at his work with the Office of the Chief Financial Officer to account for loopholes that would decrease revenue.
Earlier, Parker confirmed to The Informer that he would formally introduce his amendment in time for the second reading of the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. He however declined to reveal how much revenue is expected to be generated.
“I think the numbers speak for themselves, and while there’s reason for us to be thoughtful, I think everybody can speak to the need for the wealthy in our city to pay their fair share,” Parker said. “Right now, wealth in the country is not taxed in the same way as income. Wealth in this country is disproportionately concentrated among white folks. So, in effect, it’s not just about an inequitable tax code, but it’s about racial justice as well.”
During the latter end of the council’s Committee of the Whole hearing on Monday, council members weighed in on the question of revenue generation. D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) questioned whether the timing was appropriate, while D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) touted the need to, between first and second reading, go lengths that the D.C. Tax Revision Commission couldn’t.
“For years we’ve known we need to stabilize revenue so it doesn’t fluctuate in good times and bad. For years we waited for the Tax Revision Commission to complete its work and make recommendations— recommendations that never came,” Nadeau said. “This means we’re well overdue for substantive and structural changes to the District’s revenues to fund the tax fees, encourage business growth, assess the impact of fines and fees, and increase transparency in the tax code. This is the only way we’re going to make rational and responsible reforms to ensure that we meet the needs of the District and its residents and distribute the burden equitably.”
On Sunday, Mendelson, a proponent of a tax plan that reduces middle income earners’ tax burden, said that Parker’s proposal wouldn’t generate significant revenue. He went on to point out that the council made that move years ago with little impact, especially with government expenditures incrementally growing since then.
“Every year I hear the same refrain,” Mendelson said. “‘We need more money for this program, more money for that program, more money for another program.’ We actually raised taxes four years ago on the wealthiest people, and it’s not enough. At some point, government just can’t keep raising taxes.”
As taxpayers in neighboring Maryland grapple with newly implemented taxes and fees, Parker said that the changes he’s proposing would be negligible for those affected by the changes. He called it a bold step for the District, especially amid what the Ward 5 council member called his colleagues’ anxiety about program reduction and elimination.
“In terms of our budget, it would also yield revenue that we can pay for programming versus cutting back so many of our essential programs,” Parker said. “Our government is bloated, but I would argue that [among] my colleagues, I haven’t seen a willingness to actually cut.”
Initiative 82 and Initiative 83 to Live Another Day
On the road to first reading, Bowser and council members conducted private meetings with restaurateurs and tipped workers about Initiative 82, the ballot measure that the mayor proposed repealing earlier this year.
On July 13, Mendelson circulated a Fiscal Year 2026 budget that included a “compromise” on Initiative 82. The subtitle, crafted in collaboration with D.C. Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) and Anita Bonds (D-At large), would have set a new tipped minimum wage of $8 an hour and the standard minimum wage, only for tipped workers, set at $20 per hour.
That amount, if approved, would be nearly $3 higher than D.C.’s current minimum wage.
Not long after news surfaced of the proposal, tipped workers and advocates spoke out, calling the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act subtitle far from a compromise.
“Mendelson’s trying to say that this is going to help tipped workers when all it’s doing is cutting our base wage by another $2 after freezing it,” said Niki Afsar, a tipped wage worker who attended the council’s Committee of the Whole hearing on Monday in support of Initiative 82 and uses they/them pronouns. “We were supposed to have $12 an hour this month, so it’s pretty much a slap in the face to us and to D.C. voters who just want I-82 to be left alone and to continue.”
While some D.C. lawmakers maintain that they’ve gathered a wide spectrum of viewpoints on Initiative 82, Afsar said their voice and that of other proponents has been silenced.
Afsar told The Informer that, despite what restaurateurs and some workers are saying, they’ve experienced greater predictability in their wages since Initiative 82’s implementation.
“I’ve been able to actually come back and do this work to support myself,” Afsar told The Informer. “I can pay my rent, I can pay my groceries. I don’t have to stress out about [my bank account] every single day. It’s given me so much more stability and I’m able to live in D.C. even as everything gets more expensive. But if the wages were to be cut, it’s just getting harder and harder to live here.”
On July 14, at the front of a packed council chambers, D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) stood in solidarity with tipped workers as she spoke about her amendment striking Mendelson’s amendment.
Well before the council approved Lewis George’s amendment on a 7-5 vote, the Ward 4 council member demanded empathy from her colleagues.
“Can we center workers and recognize that they were supposed to get a wage increase and they’re not getting it and understand what that feels like,” Lewis George said. “I know we’re sitting in the seat of the business owner, but if we could just sit in the seat of the worker for just one moment and feel what that feels like to be a parent, to be a caregiver, to be a renter, to be someone trying to fight for your livelihood.”
After Mendelson’s version of the Fiscal Year 2026 budget didn’t include funding for Initiative 83, the ranked-choice voting/open primary ballot measure that voters approved last fall, the council approved an amendment that D.C. Councilmembers Christina Henderson (I-At large) and Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) advanced to only fund ranked-choice voting.
They wouldn’t do so, however, without hearing other council members’ concerns about undervoting and Republican infiltration of the Democratic Party via open primaries.
“When we look at voting trends, there’s a lot of under-voting that takes place,” D.C. Councilmember Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) said on the dais on Monday before declaring his opposition to Lewis George’s amendment and encouraging his at-large council colleagues to vote similarly. “While I think that D.C. Board of Elections can improve our current election system…I’m not sure that having open primaries and implementing ranked choice voting at the one time is the best effort.”
Though D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large) would ultimately vote in support of Lewis George’s amendment, he also chimed in about undervoting with a proposal that the council examine voter data over the next two years to better understand the degree to which Initiative 82 advances equity goals.
“Go back as far as you want, what you will find is a substantial amount of the city…don’t use both their votes,” White said on the dais. “I can’t tell you why this is, but I do think all of us want to know if when this gets implemented, there is an equity issue. If there’s not, that’s great. But if there is, then we have to ask ourselves, ‘What can we do?’”
Henderson, who, after defeating more than 20 candidates to become a council member, attempted to advance ranked-choice voting through the legislative process in 2021, told her colleagues that her and Nadeau’s last-minute amendment takes the first step in preserving what D.C. voters have organized around for years.
Moments before the council, in an 8-4 vote, approved the amendment, Henderson expressed her desire that more funds be secured before the budget is finalized.
“I was on the other side of the initiative with you regarding open primaries but I still do believe that it is the will of the voters and that we should maybe by second reading try to find the funds to implement that as well,” Henderson said on the dais. “But here’s what we can do today. We can advance something that can make a difference very soon in the way that we elect leaders in this city and make sure that more voices are heard in the polls.”
Analyzing Public Safety, Housing and Education Matters
Amid the Trump administration’s efforts to “beautify” the District, one group of District employees are celebrating the preservation of the Consistently Clean Corridor Initiative, a program within D.C. Department of Public Works (DPW) that employs D.C. residents to clean the District’s main corridors.
After the council’s Committee on Public Works eliminated 60 out of 80 positions to fund STEER Act enforcements and 10 public bathrooms, Mendelson secured funding so that the Fiscal Year 2026 budget that went before the council restored all of those positions, at least for the next fiscal year.
Debria Lewis, a Southeast resident and one of 78 people currently employed in the Consistently Clean Corridor Initiative, said she feels more confident about her prospects of becoming a permanent DPW employee.
“I do appreciate [D.C. Mayor] Muriel Bowser for creating positions like this because not only are we keeping the nation’s capital clean,” said Lewis, 30, “but it is a great opportunity to get our foot on the floor.”
On Monday, as the council deliberated and conducted its first vote on the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, Lewis and her colleagues started their task of cleaning the Rhode Island corridor. That mission, which would take them from Eastern Avenue in Northeast to 19th Street in Northwest, is anticipated to last at least one week, Lewis said.
“Today we will usually probably do three or four blocks and we’ll be collecting the bulk trash, the debris, and it might need some tree spaces or some islands might need to be cut,” Lewis told The Informer on Monday morning. “We add the tools and stuff for that as well. We’ll start from that one side, go down to Rhode Island and 18th, then go on the other side. Some people will be in the middle. Some people will be on the other side, but we still try to stay as safe as possible.”
Last November, Lewis became a staff member under the Consistently Clean Corridor Initiative when the program launched. By that time, she had been pursuing her commercial driver’s license and reeling from unemployment. She counts among her fondest memories cleaning portions of the District after the snowstorm at the beginning of this year that brought activity to a standstill.
She said that moment affirmed the importance of her job, which she hopes will garner her more recognition— and income.
“In the media, they had…different cities [with] snow still on the ground, but… they were saying how D.C. was one of the cleanest cities,” Lewis told The Informer. “We were able to get the snow up in a short amount of time before the inauguration. That was like a good thing we did… and I would like to continue to be a part of that.”
In the realm of public safety, the council didn’t change the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget— other than eliminating a highly controversial horse cadet program. D.C. Department of Forensic Science received $3.5 million to provide capacity for DNA testing. The budget also restored the Access to Justice Initiative to the tune of $30 million.
For violence interruption programming, the council allocated an additional $5.5 million to maintain six– not 10– Cure the Streets cohorts under the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE). When it comes to the Pathways Program, the Fiscal Year 2026 budget that’s going before the council moves the program back from D.C. Department of Employment Services to ONSE, while partially restoring the funding cut by the council’s Committee on Public Safety and Justice.
D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), on July 14, spoke about the work left to move all violence interruption programming under ONSE, an agency that’s been the subject of public hearings in the aftermath of former D.C. Councilmember Trayon White’s federal bribery indictment.
“We do need to continue to work together on language before second reading to make sure that merger is drafted in a way that can support the ongoing work,” Pinto said. “The agreement I secured with the executive lays out an important path forward with assurances to adhere to an evidence-informed model, reporting requirements, implementation oversight, and…benchmarking”
In the realm of homelessness prevention and housing preservation, the Fiscal Year 2026 budget going before the council maintains Bowser’s $100 million proposal for the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF).
It also increases the D.C. Department of Human Services budget via an allocation of $8 million for rapid rehousing. Additionally, the budget represents an increase in emergency rental assistance for a total of $13.4 million— more than twice what Bowser proposed.
The budget also adds $10 million to the Housing Preservation Fund and restores TANF case management for families in rapid rehousing.
During Monday’s Committee of the Whole hearing, At large Councilmember White, chair of the council’s Committee on Housing, introduced amendments that: permanently dedicate 30% of HPTF dollars to housing preservation; move $11 million from the Housing Preservation Fund to the HPTF; and defund a vacant position at Department of Community and Housing Development to fund a position within the Office of the Tenant Advocate.
The council would ultimately strike down White’s amendment allocating 30% of HPTF funds to housing preservation in an 8-4 vote, with some council members, including D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), requesting more discussion between first and second reading.
The council, however, did approve the $11 million transfer with some discussion around earmarking it for housing preservation. In the minutes leading up to that vote, White attempted to make his case that the District should prioritize housing preservation.
“The lack of Housing Production Trust Fund dollars has created a backlog of projects that haven’t received takeout financing and are at risk of default,” White said. “Currently, there’s a greater demand for the Housing Production Trust Fund than supply. Because of this, CDFIs [community development financial institutions] that administer the Housing Preservation Fund have stated that they can’t underwrite new acquisition loans because they might not be able to secure permanent financing.”
White, after asking Mendelson for more time to speak on the dais, outlined how the current scenario could negatively affect the local housing ecosystem, if not addressed through his amendment.
“Not only can these CDFIs not underwrite new acquisitions and underwrite these companies, but the loans they’ve made in the past are at risk of default because they can’t get permanent financing,” White told The Informer. “So I want us to make the wise choice and reallocate this funding to the Housing Preservation Fund where it will help ensure that tenants can stay housed, it is affordable, landlords stay afloat, and developers can build. So this will give us the flexibility we need both for preservation and construction.”
As it relates to education, the council fully funded the Schools First in Budgeting Act so that all D.C. public schools received funding equal or greater than what was allocated to them during Fiscal Year 2025.
Weeks after cutting funds for two standardized tests, Mendelson revealed that D.C. Public Schools facilitated more cuts that equal a week’s worth of testing.
The budget also funds the D.C. Futures Program across the financial plan to allow for program participants to complete their undergraduate education free of charge. Other elements include maintenance of what Bowser allocated to the Early Childhood Educator Equity Fund, with an additional $4 million— but only for the FY2026 fiscal year.
For the child care subsidy, the council also allocated an additional $15 million in one-time funding.
In what’s shaping up to be a victory for teachers and advocates, the council’s budget funds community schools grant. The current budget also doubles the number of schools involved in the truancy pilot program, so that it would be 10 total. The council allocated several hundreds of thousands of dollars to continue a program through which the Office of the State Superintendent of Education provides resources to the District’s lowest performing public and public charter schools.
In response to a persistent funding gap, the budget that’s going before the council partially closes St. Coletta of Greater Washington’s $2.6 million deficit, though Mendelson said that more can be done on Bowser’s end, for Fiscal Year 2026 and subsequent years.
“The [Uniform Per-Pupil Funding Formula] study recommended a new weight for level-four special education and that would be the long term solution,” Mendelson told The Informer.