Tucked between the holiday season and the summer season is DC budget season. It begins in January with DC Council performance oversight hearings of DC agencies, continues in March with more hearings after Mayor Muriel Bowser submits proposed budgets for those agencies, and ends in June with the council’s final vote on the District’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
These oversight and budget hearings present several opportunities to call the DC Council and the mayor’s attention to what you believe should be the District’s spending needs and priorities. Council members are hosting listening sessions, like Ward 3 Matt Frumin’s virtual meeting on Saturday, January 20th at 10 a.m. (register here). If you can’t make it, you can email him at fruminoffice@dccouncil.gov, or call his office at 202-724-8062. You can even use these listening sessions to submit questions that a council member might ask agency officials during the hearings.
ANC commissioners and individuals are also welcome to testify at the oversight and budget hearings, or submit their testimony into the record.
Bone up on some of the issues impacting ANC 3F
What might you testify about? We can think of a few topics:
- Safety and security in apartment buildings (Metropolitan Police Department, DC Housing Authority, Department of Human Services, Department of Behavioral Health)
- Rent control and voucher payment rates (Department of Housing and Community Development, DC Housing Authority)
- Connecticut Avenue bus service and the safety plan, and general traffic calming and pedestrian safety (DC Department of Transportation, WMATA)
- The Soapstone sewer rehabilitation project (DC Water, Department of Energy and the Environment)
- UDC and the DC Archives (UDC and Department of General Services)
More about the hearings and budget process
The agency oversight hearings started Wednesday, January 17th and will continue through Friday, March 1st. You can find the schedule here.
Mayor Bowser will release her budget by Wednesday, March 20th. Then, the council budget hearings, also by agency, will be held. The dates, once announced, will be listed here. The live and archived hearings can be viewed on the DC Council’s website.
What happens next? The website for the council’s Office of the Budget Director has a step-by-step summary of this and the rest of the budget process.
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