Budget Breakdown: What Mayor Gray's Proposed Budget Means for Children and Youth

As you likely heard, Mayor Gray released the proposed DC Budget for 2015 last Thursday. The multi-billion dollar budget proposal is now before Council where, through a series of upcoming public hearings and advocacy meetings, it will be debated and tweaked by Council Committees before it goes to a final vote.

To inform our budget asks for 2015, DCAYA spent the last few days reading through each agency budget to identify major changes. We found a few pockets of great investments, and a few areas that will need loud community voices in the coming weeks. Here's what we've found so far:

Education: Please note the DCPS budget format was dramatically overhauled this year and it will take us a bit more time to work though. In the meantime, here are a few broad takeaways.

DC Public Schools and Public Charter Schools  

• $112,000,000 in new funding for DC Public Schools (DCPS) and the District’s public charter schools (PCS), including $60,000,000 million in funding targeted to at risk students.
• A $409,000,000 investment for ongoing citywide school modernization.
• $880,000 to add three additional career academies in IT, engineering, and hospitality.
• A major increase in the number of middle school counselors, budget mark pending.

Office of the State Superintendent (OSSE):

• Due to a decrease in a number of federal grants, OSSE’s overall budget will be reduced by $25,697,297. This will impact a number of OSSE’s offices and programs. DCAYA is still waiting for more information on these cuts.  
• Funding to services designed to promote success in post secondary education including DC TAG, AP Test Fee Funding the College Access Challenge Grant went up by $9,788,000.

DCAYA Ask: Given the overall complexity of the Education Budget, we are continuing to work through our final asks for this year. We’ll be sure to post additional information here and on our website as soon as possible. In the meantime, DC Appleseed just released a great report and recommendations on the need for robust investments in Adult Basic Education, and as always, our friends at DCFPI have a number of great blogs up that look at the Mayor’s entire budget.

Youth Homelessness and Safety Net Services:

• Although we’re still waiting to hear final numbers on supports for Homeless and unaccompanied youth and young parents; last year’s budget for this population was $6,022,691. Given the investments made by the LGBTQ Housing Program we would anticipate this number to rise by close to $400,000 this year. We’ll update you as we learn more.
• The overall budget for homeless families shows a decrease. While the budget does include a $1,000,000 increase to both emergency rental assistance and rapid re-housing, this investment will not cover the loss of nearly $600,000 in federal funding traditionally used to provide critical safety net services for homeless families. 
• Funding to mental health services for children and youth through the Department of Behavioral Health also saw a massive increase of $23,689,000.
• The DC Kids Ride Free Program was increased by $2,000,000.

DCAYA Ask: With 48% of homeless families headed by a parent aged 24 years and younger, our city faced a mounting crisis this winter. While we applaud the commitment of this Mayor to invest in truly affordable housing and the 500 Families in 100 days initiative, we remain committed to ensuring young heads of household and unaccompanied youth receive the level of support they need to succeed long term. We must remember that many of these young parents and individuals are simply not prepared financially or emotionally to live alone. We will continue to advocate for the adoption of our $10,000,000 investment in prevention, reunification and long-term supports for this vulnerable population.

Expanded Learning and Youth Development:

• Despite early indications that the Trust’s budget could see an increase in the Mayor’s proposed budget, funding remained flat at $3,000,000.

DCAYA Ask: We stand by our initial recommendation that the Children Youth Investment Trust Corporation should be funded at $8,000,000. This is the funding level necessary to maintain its current grant making, capacity building and agency coordination efforts.

Youth Workforce:

• Funding to the DOES Summer Youth Employment Program increased by $634,000.
• Unfortunately, year round programming provided by DOES was cut by $1,943,000 due to a loss in federal funding that was not replaced with local dollars.
• The end of a contract between OSSE and DOES has removed $4,153,000 in Post-Secondary Education and Workforce Readiness funding from the OSSE budget. The impact of this cut is somewhat unknown at this time, with more information to follow.
• On a brighter note though, although this isn’t possible to find in the budget document, the Mayor’s Office Reported making an additional $2,500,000 investment in workforce programming at the Community College of the District of Columbia.

DCAYA Ask: While the investment in the community college is fantastic, the failure to invest local funds into the year round youth workforce programming is troubling. DCAYA will push for stable funding for this program and also recommends that the increase in SYEP be transferred to the year round program.

Disconnected Youth:

• The Deputy Mayor for Education’s budget does include $372,000 to support a city-wide Re-Engagement Center (REC) for Disconnected Youth.

DCAYA Ask: This budget is insufficient to support a fully functioning REC. The DCAYA’s analysis recommended $689,000 in public funding (this relies on at minimum $115,000of in-kind donations from various government agencies and foundations). We are continuing to push for the full investment recognizing that as proposed, the Mayor’s budget would hire three staff and support almost no additional resources for a REC.  In addition, we continue to push for $1,500,000 to support additional capacity in our alternative education programs. Without more seats, there will be very few educational programs for youth to reconnect to. Because funding in DCPS' budget is still unclear, progress in this area is uncertain. We'll continue to update you.


DC Alliance of Youth Advocates envisions a community where no youth is considered at-risk and where all are respected as valued members of society. Facilitating robust community input on the DC Budget to ensure smart, stable funding that positively impacts DC youth is a major part of our work. Please check our website calendar for opportunities to have your voice heard in the upcoming DC Council Budget Hearings 

For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

Youth Voice - Youth Vote

Youth don’t vote. 
They don’t care.
They don’t know.
And they don’t matter. 
That’s the myth.  

It’s time to shatter that myth.

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DC is in a crisis. The rate of individuals becoming homeless is skyrocketing: over half of the homeless families are headed by youth parents. Youth can’t get jobs: less than half of the city’s 20 – 24 year olds are able to find full time employment. Youth with jobs can’t afford housing: DC has lost more than half of its low-cost rental units and 72 percent of its low-value homes. The system is broken and people are suffering.

But if you listen to some politicians talk, they say the city is doing great. There are nicer restaurants, flashy retail stores, and more apartment buildings. Why do they only talk about this part of DC? Because they think only certain people vote.

The Democratic primary on April 1st is a critical election in DC. There are nine mayoral candidates running for a single Democratic ticket, then, the winner of the April 1st primary will face the Independent and Republican candidates on November 4th. Youth have the power to sway this election. They can have their voice heard by voting in the Democratic primary. So where do you start:

1.)    Register. You can register on the DC Board of Elections website OR look up your polling place and register day of. It’s simple.

2.)    Educate yourself. If you care about jobs, homelessness, etc., then we’ve got you covered. All Democrat mayoral, ward, at-large, and council chair candidates answered a youth survey we produced. You can compare the candidates’ answers on our website.

3.)    Educate your friends. If they live in this city as well, they have an obligation to vote, so tell them. Share the #ivoteDC video through social media, tell them about how to register, and debate about the candidates.  Be an advocate for your hot topic issues by sharing your knowledge with others. 

4.) Stay Engaged. Tweet at the candidates! Force them to get on your level, you’ll be surprised at how quickly they respond. We also want to stay engaged with you! Tell us @DCAYA why you are voting locally with the hashtag #ivoteDC. We’ll make sure to share!

5.) Vote. If you can’t get off work on April 1st, vote early. Here’s the info on how to vote early.

By the way, when we talk about youth, we mean ALL youth. So if you are young and just moved here and are wavering about whether or not to change your voter registration to DC, remember - you live here, you work here, you purchase your groceries here, you should be voting here as well. As a community member, you have the obligation to vote for what is best for you and your neighbor.

So we hope to see you via Instagram & Twitter at the polls April 1^st! #ivoteDC

Because your vote is your voice, so let it be heard.

Katie Dunn is a policy analyst at DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. Along with advocating on behalf of homeless youth and expanded learning programs, Katie  works on voter and candidate outreach. If you would like to get in touch with Katie you can follow her on Twitter at @kdunntweets or email her at katie@dc-aya.org.

 For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

Bringing Youth to the Table

As you may have heard, DC Council published their upcoming Performance Hearing Schedule and the excitement begins February 7th! Performance hearings are an incredibly important part of DC government oversight and operations.  They are a powerful opportunity for the community to give agencies and the Council key feedback on what is working and what can be improved.

Youth program participants bring unique insight to the conversation when given the opportunity to speak on behalf of the programs they access. Since youth interact with a variety of government agencies and services - often in a unique way - their voice in these hearings is critically important. We strongly encourage our members to talk with the youth they serve about the chance to testify in person, submit a written statement, write a personal letter, or even submit a verbal statement on camera so the Councilmembers who oversee key committees can hear their perspective. The youth voice is a vital part of the democratic process.

We’ve taken a few steps to help facilitate this process:

• Below we have a list of the agency performance hearings that are relevant to youth and youth serving organizations. 
• On the dc-aya.org website we offer one-pagers on specific issues, research, and past testimonies to give examples and data that can be used to strengthen a testimony. 
• We are hosting an Advocacy through Storytelling – Brown Bag Lunch at the DC Center for the LGBT Community on February 18th from 12PM – 1:30PM.  We will provide hands-on help for crafting a compelling testimony. We will also walk program providers and youth, step-by-step, through the process of testifying in front of DC Council. (Register Here)

DC Alliance of Youth Advocates is a coalition created to insure that the best programs and practices are offered to our city's young people. By unifying our voice during the performance oversight and budget hearings, we seek to realize our vision of building a truly youth-friendly DC.


Performance Oversight Hearings:

February 10th

Committee on Human Services, Chairperson Jim Graham

Agency: Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation

February 12th

Committee on Human Services, Chairperson Jim Graham

Agency: Child and Family Services Agency

February 13th

Committee on Education, Chairperson David Catania

Agency: DC Public Schools (Public Witnesses Only)

Committee on Transportation & The Environment, Chairperson Kenyan McDuffie

Agency: Department of Parks and Recreation

February 19th

Committee on Education, Chairperson David Catania

Agencies: State Board of Education, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, Public Library System

February 20th

Committee on Human Services, Chairperson Jim Graham

Agency: Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services

February 24th

Committee on Government Operations, Chairperson Kenyan McDuffie

Agencies: Advisory Neighborhood Commission, Executive Office of the Mayor

Committee on Education, Chairperson David Catania

Agency: Office of the State Superintendent of Education

Committee of the Whole, Chairman Phil Mendelson

Agencies: University of the District of Columbia, University of the District of Columbia Community College

February 26th

Committee on Business, Consumer, & Regulatory Affairs

 Agency: Workforce Investment Council

Committee on Human Services, Jim Graham

Agency: Department of Human Services

February 27th

Committee on Education, Chairperson David Catania 

Agency: DC Public Schools (Government Witnesses Only)

 March 6th

 Committee on Education, Chairperson David Catania

 Agencies: DC Public Charter School Board, Public Charter Schools

Maggie Riden is the Executive Director of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. To read her past performance oversight and budget hearing testimonies please visit www.dc-aya.org/news. Maggie will also be one of the presenters hosting the Advocacy through Storytelling - Brown Bag Lunch. 

 For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.

2014 Advocacy Agenda: Bring the Youth Voice to DC Council

With agency performance hearings starting February 7th, the primary on April 1st, and budget hearings kicking off on April 8th, the next few months will bring multiple opportunities for the DCAYA community to come together and ensure that the youth voice is a part of every policy, practice and funding conversation.

To set the stage for this exciting time of year, we wanted to take a moment and provide you with a quick rundown of the areas DCAYA will be focusing our advocacy efforts on this spring.


Youth Homelessness

Over the past few months we have seen significant strides in raising public awareness and garnering political interest in the issue of youth homelessness. With the development of the Bold Strategy to End Youth Homelessness in the District of Columbia and our members’ social media outreach, the issue is now on the radar of community members and councilmembers alike. We will move forward this spring by pushing the plan into legislation along with taking further steps to ensure all youth have a warm, safe place. We will advocate to:

• Implement first year of multi-year strategy:
•  Prevention: Family reunification and host-home program.
•  Intervention: Increase shelter capacity, create 2 drop-in centers, coordinate outreach.
•  Evaluation: Systematically track outcomes and extend point-in-time study. 
• Amend language of HSRA: 
• Ensure minors are considered “individuals” and therefore entitled to shelter on freezing nights.
• Define unaccompanied minors with their own children as a “family”: 
• Make it possible for them to access the Homeless Services System for Families.
• Illustrate the current problem: 
• If a 16 year old and her child show up to DC General, they will be turned away because the mother is not at least 18 years old.

Expanded Learning

Expanded Learning programs reduce school drop-out rates, improves grades, and increases youths’ social skills and motivation levels. However, in DC, thousands of youth are turned away from the programs due to lack of space. The District must return funding to its previous level by:

• Re-committing local dollars: 
• Now is the time to put the money back in the investment of our youth.
• Expecting high quality: 
• Programs will improve scores, reduce drop-out rate, and continue services youth need in order to thrive.
• Turning no youth away: 
• Youth should not be turned out on the street after school or in the summer if they want to keep learning. Currently there is not enough space for all who want to learn.

Disconnected Youth

In the report Connecting Youth to Opportunity: Better Understanding the Needs of Disconnected Young People in Washington DC, DCAYA detailed six recommendations for improving education-career pathways for youth looking to reconnect. The results of the city-wide survey and focus groups contributed to the coming years advocacy goals. 

• Request support of the launch of a re-engagement center for DC’s youth:
• With nearly 14,000 youth disengaged from school without a HS diploma or equivalent and struggling to enter the labor market, a re-engagement center provides a one-stop portal where youth can access referral services to successfully re-connect. 
• We’ve seen the success of such centers implemented in a diverse number of communities; notably, Philadelphia and Boston. 
• Advocate for the creation of a re-engagement center in concert with an increase in alternative education capacity:
• With at least 80% of the nearly 3,000 existing alternative learning seats for 16-24 year olds already occupied by students, expansion in alternative education and enriched adult basic education with credentialing capacity is needed to meet existing demand.
• Work to broaden the eligibility of transportation subsidies to age 24:
• Extension captures ‘older’ youth who have disconnected from traditional educational programs and have reconnected to GED or alternative credentialing programs (STAY). 
• Financially speaking, 12,000 currently disconnected District students cost taxpayers roughly $13,900 or a total of $167,000,000 in lost earnings annually. 
• The per-student annual social cost (subsidized health care, income assistance, higher rates of criminal justice involvement) of $37,450 associated with disconnection is an additional $449,000,000 a year.
• Our Connecting Youth to Opportunity report shows: “12% of surveyed youth identified that they could not always afford to get to school/class… Nearly one-third (29%) of students reported spending more than $30 a week or $120 a month getting to and from school. This suggests youth are spending between 15-30% of their monthly income on transportation alone.
• Encourage extending the hours of Kids Ride Free availability to 10pm:
• This would remove the burden of transportation costs for those who have successfully reconnected to education in alternative school settings.
• Many young people that face financial pressure to work while pursuing an education need a more flexible educational program that necessitates night classes.

Youth Workforce

The District's youth face a steep uphill battle in acquiring the educational credentials, hard and soft skills, and work experience required to find meaningful employment. We can turn this trend around by investing in year-round workforce training programs, the development of a comprehensive workforce development system, and focusing on quality programming and outcomes.

• DC has an untapped economic opportunity in young job-seekers :
• Advocate for the connection of summer work experiences with year-round academic coursework or training

• Alleviate a barrier to SYEP participation by offering a transportation subsidy:
• Many students who rely on the earnings of SYEP for college or family income find transportation a significant portion of earnings. 

Looking ahead, we hope you, your organization and the young people you work with will take a few minutes to think creatively about how you can become involved by:

• Encouraging youth, parents, volunteers, staff or board members to testify at a performance or budget hearing. 
• Recording the testimony of your supporters and young people and sending them into DCAYA for us to share them electronically with Council and the community. 
• Joining DCAYA at a meeting with Council members or at an agency budget briefing. 
• Attending a candidate forum or sharing our candidate questionnaire results with your networks.
• Participating in a DCAYA Call to Action Event. 

More details of each event will be released soon, but wanted to put a little bug in your ear as a heads up. Every bit helps. We are strongest when we speak together and DC youth deserve to be heard. 

DC Alliance of Youth Advocates envisions a community where no youth is considered at-risk and where all are respected as valued members of society. To this end, we work to establish structured opportunities for adolescents to become safe, healthy, resilient, and confident community members.

For more on youth issues in DC you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook,SUBSCRIBE to this blog and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org.