Mayor Gray’s Budget Would Mean No More Money for Many Critical Needs

As I said yesterday, Mayor Gray’s proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget provides more money for some, but little more — in some cases, no more — for programs that address low-income residents’ critical needs.

For example …

There will be $700,000 more for permanent supportive housing — reportedly enough to accommodate 45 more chronically homeless individuals and/or families than the program is serving now.

But there probably won’t be money to ensure that homeless families with no place to stay can sleep safely indoors unless it’s freezing cold outside.

Nor will there be money to increase the number of locally-funded housing vouchers they could use to help pay market-rate rents until they can afford the full rent on their own.

This could actually mean fewer of these so-called tenant-based housing vouchers because the DC Housing Authority will get less money for Housing Choice (formerly Section 8) vouchers due to sequestration.

There will be no more money for child care subsidies, though the unreasonably low reimbursement rates providers get account, at least in part, for the fact that parents of some 9,000 infants and toddlers can’t get affordable child care.

In this case, what looks like level-funding — perhaps a small increase even — will mean somewhat over $1.5 million less because sequestration will cut a portion of the District’s federal child care funding.

There will be no more money for adult literacy services — in fact, apparently $734,000 less, though I’m told the budget document may be misleading.

Even without the cut, the District will be investing considerably less than it once did to address a problem that affects not only the job prospects and daily lives of more than a third of adult residents, but the children they’re raising.

Adult literacy programs need more money not only for these “functionally illiterate” residents, but for more proficient high school dropouts, who can get the equivalent of a high school diploma by passing the GED tests.

These tests will get harder next year — and require computer proficiency. Adult literacy programs thus need to invest more in teacher training and equipment to get their students up to speed (literally and figuratively).

One would think that the District’s abysmal 59% GED pass rate would have led the Mayor, who’s so concerned about employment here, to put more money into these programs.

Ditto for adult job training, which the Mayor’s budget would cut by $624,000 — considerably more if measured against what the program will have this year if the DC Council approves his proposed supplement.

There will be no money to protect families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program from running up against the five-year time limit in cases where the parents have been excused from regular work activity requirements for compelling reasons, e.g., needs to care for a sick or disabled family member, domestic violence trauma.

There will, however, be money to protect long-term TANF families from further benefits cuts for another year.

This is a further indication that the Department of Human Services doesn’t have the resources it needs for its program revamp. Nor will it in the Mayor’s proposed budget, according to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s analysis.

Because even if it completes the remaining 9,000 or so assessments that are supposed to produce suitable work preparation plans for TANF parents, there won’t be enough training slots for them.

For a family of three, the reprieve will mean a continuing cash income of $257 a month, instead of the regular $428 — 23.9% less in real dollars than the year TANF was created.

The Mayor might have considered increasing TANF benefits, as a few states have recently done. All he chose to do was replace “lost” federal dollars, which weren’t really lost, but merely funds the District didn’t have left over, as it did the year before.

I understand that the Mayor has competing interests to balance. He wants to make the city an appealing place for higher-income people to live — good for the local economy, essential adequate revenues.

He’s got to worry about the stability and quality of the District’s own workforce.

And he understands that the city’s future hinges in part on how well it educates the next generation — though apparently not that all the early learning opportunities, libraries, modernized schools and the like can’t compensate for resources parents lack to provide for their kids’ basic needs.

Yet his budget truly is, in many respects, what its title says. It’s investing in tomorrow while ignoring investments needed today.

Needed, at any rate, if the District’s prosperity is going to benefit everyone, as the Mayor rightly says it should.

Mayor Gray Proposes More Money for Some, But Not Enough for the Neediest

Washington City Paper‘s headline after Mayor Gray released his proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget proclaimed “Money for Everyone!” Not altogether so.

There will be money for most, but not quite everyone. There will be more money for some — both businesses and individuals, including some of the District’s lowest-income residents.

But their needs still get shorted, even now that the District is looking forward to $79.7 million more in revenues than the windfall expected for this fiscal year.

So here’s a selective look at who will get more, focused mainly, as you might expect, on spending that will — or at least, could — help low-income residents. Next post will deal with help they won’t get, but could have.

There will certainly be more money for construction companies. The proposed budget bulges with projects for them — public school buildings (new and modernized), infrastructure, recreational facilities, libraries.

If the companies comply with the District’s First Source law, there could be more jobs — hence money — for unemployed and underemployed D.C. residents too.

There will be more money for affordable housing developers, since the Mayor decided to invest the bulk of his promised $100 million in the Housing Production Trust Fund.

This should ultimately mean more money for food, clothing and other necessities for some of the nearly two-thirds of extremely low-income District households who are now paying more than half their income for rent because 40% of Trust Fund dollars are supposed to help finance housing for them.

An additional $5 million will go for housing vouchers that help pay for the operating costs of units designated for the District’s lowest-income residents — an essential complement to the Trust Fund money.

Another $3.1 million will provide more housing for victims of domestic violence.

And there will be a total of $2 million more for one-time and limited-term assistance to families for whom the rent has been so unaffordable that they’ve been evicted — or are about to be.

But — getting ahead of myself here, I know — not a penny more for regular vouchers that homeless and other very low-income residents could use to help pay market-rate rents.

There will be more money for all District employees, who’ll get their first pay increases in at least four years — not only fair, but perhaps job-creating if the employees spend some of their extra cash locally.

There will be more money for some nonprofits because the Mayor’s budget would create a $15 million competitive grant fund for them.

And there will be more money for lots of District residents who’ve got municipal bonds in their investment portfolios.

Current law would impose a tax on the interest these bonds earn, unless issued by the District.

But the Mayor wants to repeal it, giving us bondholders a total of nearly $13 million over the next five years — and the unique privilege of investing tax-free in bonds of no benefit to our community.

The tax giveaway and the values it reflects are among the reasons that there’s no more money for some of the urgent needs of the District’s low-income residents, though there will be more money for other “quality of life” investments like bike lanes.

Nothing against bike lanes, mind you. But I would have put a higher priority on improving the quality of life of homeless families, some of whom will probably again be spending their nights in Metro stations, hospital waiting rooms and the like.

And a higher priority on other programs and services that can advance not only the Mayor’s quality of life improvement goal, but his other goals too.