91��ý��Ƭ��

With the House on a two-week recess and D.C.’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget still under siege, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced the start of a government-wide freeze on new hires, overtime spending, pay raises, promotions, and non-personnel expenditures.

This freeze, which went into effect on Tuesday afternoon, will more than likely lay the foundation for furloughs and government facility closures that City Administrator Kevin Donahue will recommend toward the end of April. These personnel reductions, intended to spur a cost savings of more than $400 million, are built upon Bowser’s recent increase of the District’s maximum spending cap by 6%, or more than $500 million, as allowed in a 2009 law.  

Even though the District stands to close a $1.1 billion budget gap through this method, Bowser, as recently as Monday, admitted that she still has her sights on the District of Columbia Local Budget Act, which the House needs to pass in order to immediately rectify the District’s unique budget quandary. 

“Let me be clear. We need the Congress to act,” Bowser said on Monday. “What we’re doing is a stopgap. It doesn’t address the issue. It leaves hundreds of millions of dollars of money that we have that will be in the bank that cannot be used on critical service for the residents of the District of Columbia.”

As of press time, it’s unclear how many front-facing D.C. government positions will be affected by the mayoral order, or the extent to which the spending freeze changes the quality of District services and programs. Facilities that are exempt from building closures are: D.C. public schools educational facilities; St. Elizabeths Hospital; Department of Behavioral Health Stabilization Center; Department of Human Services shelters; and comprehensive psychiatric emergency program facilities. 

Bowser’s seven-page mayoral order allows for District agencies to apply for a waiver when it comes to expenditures that generate revenue, promote public health and safety, and ensure compliance with laws, regulations and court orders. Within 10 days of the order’s start, Donahue is scheduled to present a plan detailing furloughs and government facility closures as additional cost-saving measures. 

These recommendations, to be informed by the cost savings incurred by the hiring freeze and the number of waivers received, will lay the foundation for a supplemental budget the Bowser administration will present to the D.C. Council within the 30-day window that opened when Bowser alerted House and Senate committee leadership about her use of Section 817 of the to increase the District’s spending cap. 

On Monday, Bowser declined to speak specifically about which programs were on the chopping block, as the matter proved to be more complicated than any budget situation the District has faced in recent years. 

“When you talk about cutting $400 million, in some ways it is hard to call it a cut because the money is available,” Bowser said. “It’s not like we’re talking about cutting services because we don’t have the money. We do have the money. We have to have an approved appropriation from the Congress to spend our own money.” 

Earlier this week, the mayor sent her Fiscal Year 2026 budget recommendations to the Office of Chief Financial Officer, despite what administration officials described as the office’s hesitance to address that document while Fiscal Year 2025 expenditures are still in a state of limbo. 

Meanwhile, many residents, including those who’ve taken to social media, continue to express their concern about what’s next for the District.

 “Sad,” one social media user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The city will suffer and it’s not our fault.” 

In March, House leaders shepherded the continuing resolution that triggered $1.1 billion in cuts to the District’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget while Bowser and other District leaders were navigating a budget season that will shape expenditures for Fiscal Year 2026. 

By the time they learned of the budget gap, the Bowser administration was already attempting to rectify an anticipated $300 million budget gap spurred by federal government furloughs.  

Though the continuing resolution would eventually pass through the Senate and reach President Donald J. Trump’s desk with the $1.1 billion cut still included, Senator Susan Collins (D-Maine) secured the passage of the District of Columbia Local Funds Act, which would fix what by that time had been characterized as an error more so than another instance of congressional infringement on District Home Rule.  

As the clock winded down to House recess last week, District students, parents, and organizers, once again, converged on the U.S. Capitol for the second installment of “Recess at the Capital,” an event during which hundreds of people occupied congressional office buildings and visited House and Senate leadership to ensure their support of the District of Columbia Local Funds Act. 

D.C. Shadow Representative Oye Owalewa counted among those on the frontlines of the movement to save D.C.’s budget. While not much has been said, as of yet, about reduction or elimination of services,  Owelewa noted that programs that District residents depend on would eventually be on the chopping block. 

“You know, policies that have allowed the most vulnerable residents to stay in D.C, like emergency rental assistance,” Owalewa said. “We’re talking about health programs. We’re talking about all these things that people generally support not being funded.”

Though it’s not a matter for Fiscal Year 2025, Owalewa also questioned what would become of Initiative 83, which D.C. voters and Congress approved. 

“There were some concerns about how that would be paid for and would bolster democratic D.C. elections, campaigns, and whatnot,” Owelewa said. “I wouldn’t want to see some of these things that may be popular among the people that may have been controversial with our legislative and executive branches to fall victim to such cuts.”