Wilson Building Bulletin: All the D.C. budget changes you need to know

Just as seasons change, so do municipal budgets. It was just a month ago that Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled her long-awaited $22 billion budget for 2026, kicking off the two-month sprint in the D.C. Council to review, change, and approve the city’s spending plan. 

Those initial changes are now coming into focus. This week, the council’s 11 committees started releasing their proposed tweaks to Bowser’s plan. Cuts to some programs have been restored, some of the mayor’s priorities have been sidelined, and tough choices made in what all elected officials concede is a challenging budget year. (The local economy isn’t doing great, if you haven’t heard.)

Below are some of the budget highlights we’ve found in the council committee reports and from talking to lawmakers and their staff. If you’re a sucker for punishment, you can read the reports in their entirety here.

Benefits, healthcare for low-income residents: somewhat restored

With a tighter budget than in years past, Bowser said her proposed spending plan for 2026 focused on promoting growth – which necessitated finding savings wherever possible. One place she looked to cut back was in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, proposing that the city pause cost-of-living adjustments and tighten time limits and work requirements (saving some $130 million over four years). The proposal drew fierce opposition from progressive advocates, and the council seems to have listened. Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin, who chairs the committee on human services, calls TANF a “lifeline” for low-income residents, and has proposed reversing Bowser’s cutbacks – though only for a year. That, he says, will give the council adequate time to consider how to sustainably manage TANF’s rising costs.

Over in the committee on health, At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson is limiting some of the new restrictions Bowser had proposed for the D.C. Healthcare Alliance program, which offers healthcare to 27,000 residents who are not eligible for Medicaid – nearly all of them immigrants. The mayor wanted to impose a moratorium on any new enrollees over the age of 21 starting in August, but Henderson repurposed money so that it applies to those 26 and older. She also reversed Bowser’s plan to require enrollees to recertify their eligibility every six months. What is moving forward, though, is Bowser’s proposal to shift more than 25,000 people off Medicaid and onto a new health plan that will be available through the D.C. Health Exchange. 

Commanders stadium deal: excised

There’s still plenty of excitement around the Commanders potentially returning to D.C., but approval of the $3.7 billion deal Bowser signed with the team for a new stadium at RFK will have to wait at least a few more months. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has moved to pull the deal out of the budget, meaning the legislature won’t meet the July 15 deadline set by the mayor and the team for the deal’s approval. Such a delay was expected, despite recriminations from Bowser that it could encourage the Commanders to look elsewhere. 

But Mendelson says it will allow lawmakers to hold a public hearing and do due their diligence. (The council is currently awaiting an independent economic analysis of the proposal.) And he has gone to lengths to say this isn’t a means to kill the deal, but rather explore ways to possibly improve it. “The Commanders want to open their stadium in five years," he says in a statement. "We want to see that too." 

The public hearings have already been scheduled: July 29 for members of the public, July 30 for team and government officials. 

Tipped minimum wage repeal: still in play

The future of D.C.’s restaurant industry has been a fierce topic of debate in D.C. over the last year, partly because of Initiative 82, the voter-approved measure that is slowly phasing out the city’s tipped minimum wage. Advocates argue it brings more pay stability for all workers in the industry, while opponents say it unsustainably raises operating expenses. Bowser has sided with the latter group, and in May, proposed repealing Initiative 82 fully as part of her budget. Lawmakers are divided on the question, but At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds has left the proposed repeal in the budget for now. 

Ranked-choice voting: vague

Ranked-choice voting is the subject of renewed attention thanks to New York City’s recent Democratic primary – and the progressive upset that resulted. But will it come to D.C.? It's still unclear. D.C. voters did approve Initiative 83 last year, which would bring ranked-choice voting and semi-open primaries to the city as early as 2026. But Bonds – a skeptic of ranked choice voting – hasn’t specifically funded the $1.2 million it would cost to implement the initiative. She is, though, calling on the D.C. Board of Elections to develop an “implementation plan” and "timelines for effective implementation." That’s certainly vague, suggesting that if ranked-choice voting does eventually come to D.C., it probably won’t be by next year. (The city's primary election is scheduled for June 2, 2026.)

Library hours: spared

It flew somewhat under the radar, but Bowser’s proposed budget took an axe to opening hours at neighborhood public libraries, cutting them to 40 hours a week – down from the current 61 hours. That would have meant the two-dozen neighborhood branches would only open five days a week. D.C. Public Library officials said existing staffing challenges were to blame for the likely cuts to opening hours, but Bowser only compounded them by slashing more than 24 of the library’s staff openings. 

The proposed cut to opening hours has been reversed by Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin, who chairs the committee on human services. He repurposed more than $6 million to restore vacant positions and increase the library’s hiring capacity. “There are no other publicly supported spaces open year-round that are open to all, let alone public spaces that facilitate lifelong learning and career training. A thriving neighborhood library system is a must-have, not a nice-to-have,” said his committee’s report.

This might not be the last we hear of this, though: The union that represents more than 300 library workers told me that their responsibilities have grown faster than their compensation, and hiring new library workers will remain a challenge moving forward.

Violence interruption: switched

Earlier this year, Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto introduced a bill to unite D.C.’s violence interruption programs – currently housed in the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement under Bowser’s control and in Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office – in a single place. The logic wasn’t controversial: The anti-violence efforts (which have faced challenges) could be better coordinated and standardized if run out of one place.

What was controversial, though, was Pinto’s attempt at a “merger” this week. As part of her committee on judiciary and public safety’s changes to the budget, Pinto initially proposed killing off ONSE all together and letting Schwalb’s office take the lead on violence interruption. That drew strong opposition from all quarters: Schwalb, Bowser, and even members of Pinto’s own committee. So she went back to the drawing board, emerging 18 hours later with an alternative: ONSE would instead take the lead on violence interruption and the attorney general’s programs would be shut down. 

The apparent compromise didn’t make many people much happier. At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who authored the bill that created ONSE (and had proposed a merger himself last year), didn’t appreciate how it was almost killed off, nor that the attorney general’s well-regarded Cure the Streets programs – and its 90 workers – would be shut down. It “sets the violence interruption work in the District back a decade,” he said.

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen said there was no real merger of programs taking place; instead, one or the other was being eliminated. “What’s in front of us is not a merger, because there’s no Cure the Streets program. It just stops, and I think it will have very damaging consequences. It will fracture trust,” he said.

Pinto argued that changes needed to be made, and she was doing her best dealing with limited resources. “We can’t just cover our eyes and say let’s keep doing things the same and hope they improve,” Pinto said. Ultimately, her amended proposal was approved, with only Allen dissenting. 

Schwalb isn’t pleased with the outcome.

“Despite more than a year and a half of studying and exploring a potential merger, there is no plan for consolidating the staff and resources of the two programs,” he said. “I am concerned that this rushed proposal will not result in effective violence interruption in the District, with the rigorous oversight that is critical to both improving public safety and ensuring tax dollars are being used effectively.” 

Environment: still mostly slashed

Plenty of D.C. agencies were forced to take spending cuts this year, but none as severe as the Department of Energy and the Environment, which faced a 24% hit to its operating budget. The biggest portion of that came from the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund, which we all pay for through small assessments on gas and electric bills. The fund – which was expected to take in $100 million in 2026 – helps pay for renewable energy projects across D.C., but Bowser proposed taking $71 million to instead pay for the city’s rising electric bills. The move prompted howls of complaints from environmentalists, who said Bowser was backtracking on the city’s environmental commitments, but it was also too big to undo. 

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen did manage to restore $2.7 million to fund a program that helps retrofit older low-income homes with modern HVAC systems and appliances. He also reversed Bowser’s attempt to claim all the money from the five-cent bag fee, and instead kept it for what it was intended – helping clean up the Anacostia River. Finally, Allen rejected Bowser’s push to undo laws that require buildings to improve their energy efficiency and another that mandates that new buildings built after this year be net-zero. Bowser said both sets of requirements would make building too expensive in D.C., but Allen said they are important tools to drive down the city’s largest source of carbon emissions.  

Bad drivers: targeted

The consequences for dangerous driving in D.C. are likely to get more severe in the next year. Allen’s committee on transportation and the environment is funding a portion of a new law to crack down on the worst offenders, this time by empowering D.C. to assess points for traffic camera tickets. (They currently only issue fines.) Any more than 10 points in a six-month period will authorize D.C. crews to boot or tow a car. Similarly, Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau directed money from her own committee on public works and operations to fund her bill that will allow D.C. to immediately boot and tow cars with fake or no tags. 

Children and babies: shortchanged

With all the changes that lawmakers are proposing for Bowser’s budget, there’s some things they simply haven’t been able to find money for. One is Baby Bonds, a program created by At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie that would invest $1,000 a year in accounts for low-income kids in D.C. starting at birth, allowing them to access the money for education or housing once they turn 18. Bowser defunded the program, taking its $85 million for other purposes. Much the same fate befell Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker’s expanded Child Tax Credit, which was expected to cost $60 million over four years. 

Bowser made news earlier this year when she agreed to fully fund the $70 million program that helps increase pay for child care workers across D.C., reversing her past attempts to fully defund it. But the celebration was short-lived: Bowser only funded it for one more year, raising concerns over how it might be maintained thereafter.  

One issue that was less intensely fought over this cycle than in years past, though, was funding for D.C. Public Schools and charter schools. (Bowser’s budget included a 3% funding bump in the amount that the city spends for every kid in school.) That’s not to say there haven’t been cuts, though, including to the city’s Community Schools program, which offers expanded educational and social services to students and their families.

And much more:

• The mayor proposed repealing the city's sanctuary city law as a part of her budget, but the council is pumping the breaks on that plan.
• In his committee on housing, At-Large Councilmember Robert White keeps Bowser’s $100 million investment in the Housing Production Trust Fund – the main tool to help pay for affordable housing – while adding a requirement that 30% of that money be used to preserve existing affordable housing, instead of building it. White also added money for the Housing Purchase Assistance Program, while mandating that the city stop using a somewhat controversial lottery to dole out the funding to residents.
• Bowser had proposed legalizing commercial card games like poker and blackjack, but McDuffie rejected the idea, saying there are still too many questions about how such an expansion of legal gambling would work. He also rejected Bowser’s proposal for sales tax holidays at local restaurants on three days over the course of the year, but supported her decision to delay a scheduled sales tax increase by a year.
• Nadeau found funding to grow the number of  public toilets around D.C., adding four new sites to the existing six ones. (We reviewed these futuristic Throne toilets recently.) 
• Pinto greenlit Bowser’s request for a 4.8% increase to the Metropolitan Police Department’s budget in part to increase hiring efforts, but rejected Bowser’s request for a new horse-mounted unit for crowd control at protests.
• Mendelson restored funding for a program that allows D.C. Public Schools to sponsor green cards for a small number of foreign teachers every year. 

What’s next

Now that all of the council’s committees have voted on their proposed changes to Bowser’s budget, everything goes to Chairman Phil Mendelson – who has the responsibility of compiling it into an amended budget that the council will vote on. 

It’s a position that affords him plenty of power to pick and choose what will ultimately be included in the budget, but it’s also something of an unenviable task in a tight budget year. Remember the programs we mentioned above that individual councilmembers weren’t able to fund? Well, those same lawmakers have asked Mendelson to try and do so himself. But since there’s not an unfound pot of money to do so, he’d have to take money from whatever is already paid for or find new revenue.

And that speaks to pending changes that could come to the budget before the first planned vote on July 14. Councilmembers can try and identify new sources to pay for programs and initiatives that individual committees couldn’t afford. This has happened in the past; the council increased property taxes on wealthy homes last year, for example, while in 2021 it raised taxes on wealthy households to fund homeless services and pay increases for child care workers. Progressive groups are again calling for higher taxes on wealthy residents. While at least two councilmembers we’ve spoken to say they’d be willing to consider it, Bowser, for her part, is against any new taxes.

Of course, there is one more big unknown coming. On June 30, D.C.’s chief financial officer will release a quarterly revenue estimate that shows whether the city is bringing in as much money as expected. If it’s not, the council may be forced to make spending cuts – and quickly. And that could also reinvigorate the conversation about raising taxes.

In short, while a final budget is starting to come into view, changes can and will be made over the next month. A second and final budget vote is scheduled for July 28.