This summer, the D.C. Council has a lot on its plate as they attempt to restore programming, approve construction of a new football stadium, and address polarizing elements of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act.
That being said, there’s quite a lot to cover in this edition of The Washington Informer’s Collins Council Report. Happy reading!
Looking Into a High-Pressure Budget Season
In the 50 years of District Home Rule, the D.C. Council has broken for summer recess at the same time — in the middle of July at the conclusion of budget deliberations. However, that won’t be the case this year, much to the chagrin of Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D).
While announcing the newly revised budget season schedule, Mendelson lamented how a two-month delay — spurred in part by House Republicans’ passage of a continuing resolution decimating D.C.’s Fiscal Year 2025 coffers — could jeopardize public engagement on various issues of concern.
“The challenge is that the first hearing was scheduled for last Wednesday [or] Thursday [and] the budget books didn’t come out until Friday, although the budget chapters were available online on Tuesday,” Mendelson said on June 2. “But it’s just really hard for the public to follow. It’s also hard because … what we’re working with now is the third schedule.”
Mendelson said he and his council colleague are also feeling the heat.
“The choices were taken away from us by delivering the budget, too,” he added.
On June 2, Mendelson met with members of the press in Room 502 of the John A. Wilson Building instead of Room 412 — which was occupied by D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson’s (I-At-Large) Committee on Health. For at least the next month, rooms in the Wilson Building will be occupied in similar fashion during council committee agency hearings, which will inform a budget proposal that residents, advocates, and everyone else in between will have a chance to comment on during a June 18 Committee of the Whole hearing.
From that point, the council will most likely vote on the Fiscal Year 2025 supplemental, Fiscal Year 2026, and Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act on July 14 and July 28, with the possibility of Mendelson scheduling an additional meeting on July 31.
During the latter part of May, Bowser and members of her cabinet presented a budget package aimed at: closing a continuing resolution-induced $1.1 billion budget gap without sacrificing government jobs, public safety and services for young people, and spurring economic growth through sports and tourism.
As the mayor’s budget submission deadline moved from early April to the middle of May, and later to the end of that month, the council approved some legislation, including that calling on Bowser to submit her budget proposal.
To this day, Mendelson contends that budget delays have jeopardized the council’s work.
“In the last three or four meetings, I believe one bill has come out of the committee other than the committee vote,” Mendelson said. “So, all the legislative work was substantially slowed during April, and May, because that’s when we were going to be working on the budget. The legislative work was going to take place in June and July, while now we’re dealing with the budget.”
On Tuesday, after the council’s legislative meeting, members of the council conducted another meeting where D.C. Council Budget Director Jennifer Budoff, after gathering feedback from council members, identified the following as some budget season priorities: early childcare educator funding beyond one fiscal year; restoration of child tax credits and cost-of-living adjustments for TANF; housing preservation fund; early literacy task force; Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services therapeutic programs; and preservation of Ward 7 economic development and Department of Energy and Environment-funded programs.
Given the District’s precarious economic situation, there remains the question of which programs the council will be able to save, and if council members can avoid pitting programs against one another. However, D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) said he thinks that’s possible, going as far as telling The Informer that raising taxes on the top 5% might be a means of accomplishing that goal.
“The argument is often that we shouldn’t explore raising taxes on them, because regionally, we want to be competitive,” Parker said. “Well, our neighbors, Maryland, just raised taxes on capital gains, they raised taxes on the wealthy, and as a result, they have secured a triple bond rating, and they have been able to fund critical programs because they did not see their limited amount of resources as the guiding post.”
Local organizer Niciah Mujahid commended the council for meeting after its legislative meeting to develop a “shared vision and strategy” for the budget, telling The Informer that they run the risk of not being on one accord at an unprecedented time.
“I’m glad they finally got there today,” said Mujahid, executive director of Fair Budget Coalition D.C. “And it signals intentional, collaborative leadership that we’ll need to get us through this budget season.”
Even with 70 days allocated toward passage of the budget, as mandated in the Home Rule Act, Mujahid counts among those raising concerns about the degree to which the most marginalized Districts residents will be included in the process.
Fair Budget Coalition, an entity that advocates for budget and policy initiatives that address racial and socioeconomic inequity in the District, released a statement last week, shortly after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget meeting. That statement included a demand that Mendelson, and D.C. Council members Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3), Parker and Robert White (D-At large) postpone agency hearing dates for the Department of Human Services, D.C. Housing Authority and Child & Family Services Agency to allow for a full understanding of the budget among those who are signing up to testify.
“When you have a hearing schedule that has hearings right up front for some of the agencies that folks have some of the most feedback for and toughest experiences,” Mujahid said. “It doesn’t give us enough time as constituents and advocates to find data and organize community members.”
Immigrants and Advocates Respond to Threats to D.C. Sanctuary Law
Each year, the mayor’s budget proposal includes the Budget Support Act, which, according to the D.C. Council Office of the Budget Director, includes “statutory changes needed for the implementation of the budget.”
Some advocates, however, see the bill as a tool for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) to circumvent the legislative process and eliminate laws that she doesn’t favor.
During the last budget season, Bowser attempted to scrap the Schools First in Budgeting Act by such means. This year, she has her sights on the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act, a pandemic-era law through which the District can decline to cooperate with federal immigration officials, except when issued a warrant.
“This will lead us to further criminalization and mass incarceration of Black and brown communities,” Nadia Salazar Sandi said during a Monday morning protest in front of the Wilson Building.
Salazar Sandi, a member of Collective of Migrant Families, counted among those who spoke against Bowser’s proposed elimination of the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act. She said that, if the council follows through with Bowser’s version of the Budget Support Act, then immigrants, especially working-class immigrants, will continue to suffer from raids conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — otherwise known as ICE.
Since the start of the second Trump administration, residents have reported ICE raids in the D.C. metropolitan area.
In March, students, parents and community members stood in support of a healthcare contractor who ICE agents attempted to detain outside of a District public school in Northwest. One of the agency’s more recent activities took place on May 4, when agents arrested 189 alleged undocumented migrants and issued warnings to more than 180 businesses.
Days later, photos circulated on social media of ICE agents standing in front of Columbia Heights Education Campus in Northwest, with similar activity rumored to follow at Mundo Verde Bilingual Public Charter School. For Salazar Sandi, such incidents are stressing parents and young people already struggling under the weight of life in an increasingly expensive city.
“Our message is clear,” Salazar Sandi said. “Safety is children in well-funded schools, people [being] able to work freely and provide for their families, access to life-saving care, not fearing that any interaction with government agency will lead to detention and deportation and thus family and community separation.”
At times, Salazar Sandi spoke directly to the agency that’s struck fear into immigrant families.
“Safety is ICE out of our neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, out of our workplaces,” Salazar Sandi said. “And simply out of the District.”
On Monday, Bowser sought to clarify her position on the Sanctuary City Amendment Act, telling reporters that the council legislated a practice that former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray had already brought it to fruition through a mayoral order.
“At some point, it was converted into law and in my opinion, misnamed because it has this very broad and sweeping name, but it’s doing something very specific,” Bowser said. “It’s speaking to how we work with the federal government on people who are being held in D.C. Jail. So I think it’s both misnamed and maybe misplaced, and I think it’s a good time to repeal that and work with the council on what we really need our local law to say.”
In the fall of 2019, the council approved the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act amid the first Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on sanctuary cities — defined as a city that protects undocumented immigrants via non-use of local law enforcement resources for immigration enforcement or the refusal to share information with immigration authorities.
Since the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act’s passage, several U.S. cities have taken on the designation. Though there are no official figures, advocates estimate the existence of anywhere between 200 and 500 sanctuary cities. In the aftermath of a Trump executive order in April, the Department of Homeland Security has compiled a list of jurisdictions under threat of loss of federal funds for “refus[ing] to cooperate with federal immigration officials.”
D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), a vocal supporter of the Sanctuary Values Amendment, said she expects the council to eliminate a portion of the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act that repeals the legislation.
“If the mayor wants to have a deeper conversation about the law then we can do that in a more formal way,” Nadeau told The Informer. “We need assurance from our government that they’re not sharing personal information with federal authorities. Every District resident wants to know that their personal information is safe whether they’re an immigrant or not.”
On Monday, Nadeau emphasized her priority to ensure all residents feel protected as she walked past protesters who gathered in front of the Wilson Building. Later, while speaking with The Informer, she expressed solidarity with her constituents, and others living in a city that’s under the microscope of the federal government.
“The feds have their job to do and … our job is to make sure we’re providing programs for everybody who’s here in the District of Columbia and we’re keeping everyone in our community safe,” Nadeau said. “That people feel comfortable working with the government. If we repeal that policy, I think it undermines all of that and certainly doesn’t make our community safer”
Some advocates, like Helen Abraha, said that Bowser’s proposed elimination of D.C.’s sanctuary city status does more harm than good, especially for families who’ve long been under threat of harassment and deportation.
“This is not the time to allow ICE to collaborate with the police and embolden their powers even further,” said Abraha of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington, D.C. “It is time to provide further protection and safety nets for the individuals and families who have been and will be affected by the increased levels of terror in our communities.”
The Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington, D.C. counts among several entities that are dedicated to improving wages and workplace conditions for the District’s lowest wage workers. In her role, Abraha continues to advocate for a group that, as she pointed out, put their lives on the line at the height of the pandemic.
She said that it’s time that District officials do the same, especially if they’re concerned about the District’s economic future.
“They are our taxi drivers, our chefs, our servers, our dishwashers, our nannies, our domestic workers and construction workers,” said Abraha, a Ward 5 resident and daughter of Eritrean immigrants. “And let’s not forget that construction and hospitality are the major drivers of D.C.’s economy. So if we’re speaking from a humanitarian perspective, I want to ask, how do you think these actions will impact our economy? An economy that has been built on the labor of Black and brown residents.”
Some D.C. Councilmembers: Initiative 82 Delay is Not a Repeal
In an 8-4 vote, the D.C. Council approved the Tipped Minimum Wage Increase Clarification Emergency Amendment Act of 2025, an emergency measure that delays the July 1 tipped minimum wage increase while the D.C. Council assesses the impact of minimum tipped wage increase on workers and restaurants and a proposed federal tax on tipped wages.
Those who voted against the emergency were D.C. Councilmembers Nadeau, Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3), Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Parker.
While most of her council colleagues, including D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At Large), differentiated a delay in the tipped minimum wage increase from a repeal like what Bowser is aiming for this season, Lewis George said that it’s hard to tell the difference.
“How does our pause bring clarity? It doesn’t,” Lewis George said on the dais. “It breeds more confusion and emboldens the ongoing efforts to dismantle the will of the 74% of district voters who passed I-82 in 2022.”
Lewis George, citing the increase in employment and recent launch of more than 100 local restaurants, then questioned the assertion that business owners haven’t been able to thrive in the post-pandemic era.
“Plenty of restaurants have adjusted,” she said. “Many have incorporated these changes directly into their menus and their pricing. Since 2022, the data tells us that the D.C. restaurant industry is confident that restaurants can be successful in the District and pay a living wage.”
With a crowd of activists cheering her on, the Ward 4 council member called for policy decisions that promote equity.
“To the people of the District, especially to our workers, this cannot fall on your backs,” Lewis George said. “You should not be the ones asked to bear the cost of uncertainty, bad policy, or political hesitation. As a council, our responsibility is to make our economy work for everyone, not balance our budgets by rolling back wages and protections for working families.”
In 2022, nearly 75% of D.C. voters approved I-82, also known as the District of Columbia Tip Credit Elimination Act. This happened years after the D.C. Council repealed Initiative 77, a nearly identical ballot measure that voters approved by a 12-point margin. Last month, amid complaints from restaurant owners and tipped wage workers, Bowser revealed her intention to repeal Initiative 82, via the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act of 2025, as a means of spurring economic activity.
Bowser’s announcement came amid Congressman Steve Womack’s introduction of legislation that clarifies the definition of a tipped worker to the benefit of restaurant owners. Another factor concerns the Senate’s passage of the No Tax on Tips Act, which proposes a federal income tax exemption for up to $25,000 in tips for employees earning below $160,000.
In his remarks, McDuffie, the author of the emergency legislation, said that a pause is necessary.
“Pausing the July 1 wage increase allows the council to fully consider the data and the impact on our local restaurant industry,” McDuffie said. “As well as to assess the implications of federal tax changes on tipped income and allow the council to engage with stakeholders on either side of this issue. Workers, labor, owners, operators, everybody who cares about the state of our industry, to engage with them to develop a balanced approach that supports both workers and the businesses that employ them in this industry.”
While Frumin acknowledged the need for an evaluation of Initiative 82, he stressed the need for data that’s not clouded by an agenda, either for or against a raise in the raised tipped minimum wage. He said that data compiled by the D.C. Council Office of the Budget Director, for the time being, comes the closest to meeting that standard.
“We see the data from the Budget Office showing [wages] going up. The number of establishments we see going up,” Frumin told his colleagues on Tuesday. “This is not, when you look at objective data that comes from folks who don’t have an agenda, this is not an industry that is in crisis. I hear it everywhere. I hear it from different restaurants, but I keep going back to the actual objective data that we have.”
At-Large Councilmember White also asked for balance and nuance in exploring the issue. Before voting in support of a pause to the tipped minimum wage increase, he cited a survey of nearly 150 hospitality workers his office conducted.
He also spoke about qualitative evidence he collected in his visit to Spark Social House in Northwest.
“The owner was there, so I just asked him, ‘What the heck made you want to do this?’” White said. “He said he was a barback, and he and his friends decided that they wanted to create a space that didn’t exist yet in D.C. Are they struggling to make ends meet? Yeah. But did they step out on a dream, and do they support their workers like family? Yes, they do.”
Despite assertions that Initiative 82 had grassroots support, some people, like D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), questioned whether the fervor for this cause came from outside of the District. Such excitement, she said, has clouded judgment on how to implement this law to the benefit of all parties involved.
“Will it work in 10 years? And with our economy being down, I don’t know if we have the opportunity or should take the opportunity to see if it will work in 10 years,” Bonds told The Informer during the D.C. Council breakfast on Tuesday. “I don’t know the answer to that. In fact, I may have said when I held the hearing a few months ago and heard from a lot of the tipped workers that I thought we needed to pause and see if we can’t make some adjustments to this process.”
A Sign of What’s to Come Next School Year
On its first reading, the D.C. Council approved the Board of Trustees Training Amendment Act, which, in the aftermath of Eagle Academy Public Charter School’s sudden closure, mandates newly installed public charter school board members to receive training from the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
After months of discussion among Ward 3 residents, and a legislative process, the council also approved, on the first reading, the John R. Thompson Jr. High School Designation Act of 2025, which renames McArthur High School in honor of the District native and beloved Georgetown Hoya men’s basketball coach.
Frumin, whose jurisdiction includes the District’s newest public school, said he came to appreciate the choice that residents made, without his input, after attending an event at Georgetown University where he learned about Thompson before honorees received an award in the local legend’s name.
“He was a son of the city,” Frumin said. “A really great man who played such a positive role in the lives of a lot of different people and stood up for his athletes at a key point in the NCAA that we should honor. Coming out of the box, I might not have chosen it but] it was later in the process that I came to think that this is a great name for the school.”
Another education-related bill the council approved, on the second reading, was the Disconnect Amendment Act of 2025.
This legislation, formerly known as Heads Up! Distraction-Free Learning Amendment Act, prohibits the use of smartphones in D.C. public school and public charter school classrooms. Moments before this vote, Lewis George spoke about a change of heart she said happened after meeting with high school students from Coolidge and Roosevelt, both located in Northwest.
“It was actually the students who said that the benefits to student learning, focus, and well-being, and their well-being really did outweigh the other concerns,” Lewis George said. “They actually think the overall policy will be good for them and their classmates overall, so I just thought it was really great because in the midst of debate, they really had the opportunity to talk about … the way cyberbullying plays out, the ways distractions happen.”
Once it passes, the Disconnect Amendment Act of 2025 will outline requirements for notifying students about the cell phone policy, and fund the installation of on-campus cellphone storage lockers. It will also allow for in-class cell phone use for students who have such accommodations outlined in their Individualized Education Program, also known as an IEP.
Educators would also be allowed to let students use tablets and laptops during the instructional day for educational purposes, while providing wireless communication devices in case of an emergency or health-related matter.
During Tuesday’s legislative meeting, Parker too acknowledged a new perspective, after speaking with Mendelson, made him more embracing of a transition period.
“He persuaded me that having more time is better for [the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE)] to do the work that they need to do, but also for schools to get this right,” Parker said, with a caveat. “The one thing I would emphasize and I keep saying is that we don’t need a policy for the sake of having a policy, but it’s going to be important that this is socialized and enforced so that we can keep our young people focused on learning.”
For nearly a year, the D.C. Council and D.C. State Board of Education (SBOE) simultaneously explored the issue of cellphone use in the classroom, with both bodies hearing perspectives on both sides of the issue. On Tuesday, D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), who introduced the Disconnect Amendment Act of 2025, paid homage to her SBOE counterpart, Rep. Allister Chang (Ward 2), as she has remained steadfast in her insistence that OSSE — and all adults for that matter — play their part in quelling in-class smartphone use.
“Our students are at school some of the time, at home some of the time, in communities some of the time,” Pinto said. “ And we all, as adults, need to get on the same page that constantly using these devices, staying up late on social media, some of our students only getting two or three hours of sleep a night, all of this has detrimental harm.”