By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
This budget season, D.C. Council members are considering how Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) proposal to cut funding in order to balance her $2.6 billion spending package for fiscal year 2026 will affect the city.
Bowser’s proposed budget includes $246 million in reductions to city programs and services. It also features the removal of funding for a new jail to be replaced by a public-private partnership to finance and build the facility and lease it back to the District. These cuts were made in large part to
“As the planning process has wrapped up it’s clear that to be able to build a jail of the size and quality needed it probably involves $1.4 billion,” said Paul Kihn, deputy mayor for education, on May 27 at the unveiling of the mayor’s proposed budget. Kihn said that’s just not feasible and would take too much time to complete.
Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) responded to that argument by saying “it’s easy to throw out a figure that isn’t necessarily a solid vetted carefully developed figure.”
Mendelson said he’s concerned and disappointed with the proposal.
“We desperately need a new jail for a couple reasons,” said Mendelson. “One is that the jail buildings are old. They are not as good as they should be to house human beings. In addition the architecture with regard to jails has changed so much in the last few decades. The modern jail would be much less expensive to operate.”
Another major concern is the change in Medicaid eligibility requirements in the budget. Councilmembers heard several public testimonies on June 5 at the Committee of Health’s public testimony only hearing.
“A 2023 study of a half a million Medicare beneficiaries found that the group with the regular primary care visits and high continuity of care had $3,400 more in savings per person, 40 percent less frequent emergency visits and 53 percent less frequent hospitalizations compared to the group receiving irregular and non-continuous care,” said George Jones, CEO of Bread for the City, a hunger relief organization based in Washington, D.C. “We cannot continue our relentless focus on providing high-quality regular and continuous care to the people most vulnerable to illness without stable and secure funding.”
The budget phases out D.C.’s Health Care Alliance coverage for persons over 21, enacts a moratorium on new enrollees, denies around 25,000 Medicaid recipients who exceed income thresholds access to robust Medicaid services and moves them into a “basic health plan” in the public Marketplace instead.
According to 2021 data from the American Community Survey, approximately 69 percent of employed Medicaid enrollees aged 19 to 64 in D.C. identify as African American. Given that Black residents make up around 41 percent of the city’s population, it shows that Black Washingtonians have a significant reliance on Medicaid.
Jones urged that if the basic health plan moves forward, authorities should ensure it includes the same robust benefits as Medicaid, including services like dental and vision, retroactive eligibility, continuous enrollment and zero premiums or cost sharing.
“If that takes additional District investment we believe it’s a price worth paying to protect our community’s health,” he said.
The council began their budget oversight hearings on May 29. They will end on June 17. Committee mark-ups are set for June 23 and will end on June 25.
This budget season was delayed by two months due to sudden federal shenanigans with the city’s fiscal year 2025 budget funding. Bowser did not release her proposed budget until May 27, when it was originally expected to be presented on April 2.
Instead of taking their summer recess on July 15, as has been the tradition for 50 years, they will now have to take theirs in August.
Mendelson said the council will vote on the budget on July 14 and again on July 28. The Home Rule Act permits the council only 70 days maximum to work on the budget and finalize it after the mayor provides them her proposal.