Heather Curtis
MARYLAND (WMAL) – The District of Columbia’s being hit hard financially by the Coronavirus pandemic. Friday Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an order that freezes hiring, salary increases and travel for most government employees. She said there will be exceptions, including the Coronavirus response, public safety, human services and school staffing.
Bowser said $607 million dollars will need to be cut from the budget for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
“Just as residents and businesses are making tough choices, the District will make tough choices too,” Bowser said at a press conference Monday.
With non-essential businesses forced to close, employees furloughed and laid off and essential businesses taking in less revenue, the District’s financial situation has taken a turn for the worse during the pandemic. Other places around the country are also facing financial challenges for the same reasons, and leaders are taking similar actions. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued a hiring freeze and asked state departments to figure out ways to cut their budgets. The two-year $135 billion budget the Virginia legislature passed in March was based on revenue growth of 3 percent. Virginia’s Finance Secretary Aubrey lane estimates Virginia will lose hundreds of millions of dollars this fiscal year alone from the pandemic.
To put in perspective how much $607 million is for the District in the grand scheme of things, Bowser said it is about half the budget for the D.C. Public Schools, and about the same as the budget for D.C. Fire and EMS.
Despite this, Council Chair Phil Mendelson said the District remains in a good financial position and officials are not worried about whether they have revenue.
“But we are concerned that because we are dipping into our contingency funds substantially and just because of the way cash flow works that there could be a dip greater than we have experienced in the last few years in August,” Mendelson said.
Tuesday the city council will consider emergency legislation that – among many other coronavirus relief measures – would authorize short-term borrowing.
Still, Bowser believes spending levels can be on par with those from 2017 when she said they were doing transformational things in the city.
“We’re gonna continue to do wonderful, transformational things in our city, but there will be less money, and there’s more uncertainty about how fast our revenues come back,” Bowser said.
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