'It is unsustainable' | DC Mayor returns budget to Council without signature – says she cannot support it

WASHINGTON — The battle over D.C.’s budget continues with Mayor Muriel Bowser dealing the latest blow. 

Tuesday, the mayor returned the District’s budget to the Council without her signature. The symbolic gesture, just short of a veto, has no impact on the emergency bill which went into effect Tuesday. 

However, the mayor expressed her displeasure in a letter writing, “I cannot support a budget that needlessly increases our residents’ property and income taxes, raises the paid family leave tax to untested levels, or harms our public schools.”

The DC Council passed the $21 billion FY25 Budget Support Emergency Act and the Local Budget Act in June, reversing the mayor’s proposed measures by restoring funds to the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund and reallocating $25.4 million from DC Public Schools central office to individual schools.

The Council version increases property taxes on homes worth more than $2.5 million, an additional tax increase for employers toward the Paid Family Leave program, 477 housing vouchers, and an additional $6.7 million for emergency rental assistance, bringing total to $26.9 million.

The Mayor called the budget “unsustainable” criticizing the Council for not recognizing “the reality of our fiscal environment: revenues are growing at two percent per year while the costs of doing the basics are growing even faster.”

>Read Mayor Bowser's letter below

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson responded in a statement saying: 

“I do not understand the Mayor’s endgame with her letter returning next year’s budget unsigned. She criticizes the Council for raising taxes, but leaves out that she asked to raise taxes, too. She criticizes our four-year total of $530 million, but she sought a four-year total increase of $1.8 billion. She complains about the Council increasing spending, but actually she submitted an FY 25 budget more than $1 billion over the current year’s budget. We added to it only slightly – about $40 million. The final budget has fostered very little criticism from the community at-large. Only the Mayor seems to still be upset. By her critical letter, is the Mayor asking, once again, that Congress take note and intervene in our local affairs?”

The Council is in recess until Sept. 16, 2024. The Local Budget Act goes to Congress for a standard 30-day review. The mayor has yet to receive the permanent budget. It is unclear whether her actions indicate she would veto the permanent budget.