The DC Budget Squeeze, a post from DC Fiscal Policy Institute

This week, we are featuring a blog post from DC Fiscal Policy Institute, with their permission. While we've spent the past month highlighting various FY2018 Budget asks that are backed by sound research and community input, we wanted to raise up what could be a quintessential piece of the funding pie, regarding tax cuts whose postponement could be key to insuring we make the investments we need to, so that we continue to make progress on supporting some of our most underserved.

The DC Budget Squeeze: Tax Cuts and Key Spending Demands Left No Room for Other Progress

May 3rd, 2017

The District is enjoying tremendous prosperity, yet there isn’t enough money in the proposed DC budget to support schools adequately or to make meaningful progress on ending chronic homelessness. In fact, funding for most parts of the budget will be smaller next year than this year.

How can that be?

One factor is beyond DC policymakers’ control: A lot of money will be sucked up next year by rising school enrollment, Metro’s woes, and a few other needs. But the other factor is something Mayor Bowser and the Council fully control: tax cuts. The proposed budget allows $100 million in tax cuts to go forward—triggered by a policy set three years ago—which left no room for things that matter a lot to DC residents and our economy.

With the budget now in the hands of the DC Council, they can choose to hold off on tax cuts so that badly needed investments can be made. In particular, the Council should reconsider plans to eliminate taxes on estates worth $5.5 million and to cut taxes on business benefiting from DC’s prosperity. Both the estate tax and business income tax have already been cut in recent years, by the way.

Read the rest of this blog by Ed Lazere here.

DCAYA's Advocacy Agenda for 2017

This week, we wanted to share our advocacy agenda, going into this year's Performance Oversight and Budget hearings. We've broken down our short term goals for the next year or so by our four main issue areas.

Youth Homelessness

One main goal is to scale up the capacity of our system to serve close to twice as many youth through developmentally appropriate and culturally competent services. To this end, we will be advocating for fully funding the first year objectives in Youth Strategic Plan, an investment of $5.7 million. Not limited to beds and transitional housing, this investment also includes building support for long term prevention and intervention strategies.

Progress Amidst Uncertainty - A recap of DCFPI's event

Yesterday, DC Fiscal Policy Institute hosted an event, co-sponsored by a number of local organizations, including DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. The event was called, "Progress Amidst Uncertainty: Making the Most of DC's 2018 Budget". Our entire team was in attendance, at the True Reformer Building.

Also hello and good morning from our entire team, @MaggieRiden, @amy_dudas, @joeygDC & @AWayofLife0 (behind the camera). #ProgressDC #DCFY18 pic.twitter.com/FP7CLrpaMa

— DCAYA (@DCAYA) January 31, 2017

Beverly Wheeler was our Emcee for the morning. Ms. Wheeler is the Director of DC Hunger Solutions, a nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger in the Nation's Capital.

@DCHunger's Beverly Wheeler opening up today's convo re: making the best out of DC's budget under 45 #ProgressDC #UntieDC pic.twitter.com/cAD91DnbcT

— BFC Organizing (@BFCorganizing) January 31, 2017