D.C. Mayor To Detail Budget Plan To House Panel
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The congressional subcommittee that oversees the District of Columbia has called Mayor Vincent Gray to testify about his budget proposal, an unusual move that angered some D.C. leaders who say the city should be allowed to make its own spending decisions.
Gray and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown will appear Thursday morning before a subcommittee of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., called the hearing to examine the long-term sustainability of the district's finances.
Congress must approve the district's budget, and before the spending plan is submitted to Congress, the district's chief financial officer must certify that it is balanced.
The district faces a $322 million shortfall for the coming fiscal year. Gray's $9.6 billion proposed budget for the coming fiscal year would close that gap with a mix of cuts and new taxes, but several council members, including Brown, have balked at the prospect of raising taxes on the city's wealthiest residents.
In 1995, Congress established a control board to oversee the district's finances after years of fiscal management woes. The control board was disbanded in 2001 but could return if the district fails to meet certain financial benchmarks. But Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi has authority over all such spending moves and has vowed that the control board will never return on his watch.
Nonetheless, the committee, now controlled by Republicans, raised the specter of the control board's return as a justification for calling the hearing.
"The return of the control board is something that nobody wants to see happen and does not benefit anybody, so it's always a concern," said Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for the committee.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who has represented the district in Congress for 20 years, said she could not recall an oversight committee hearing on the mayor's proposed budget and said the control board issue was a red herring.
Gray told The Associated Press that he welcomed the opportunity to explain his budget and said there was no reason for concern about the district's long-term fiscal health.
"We've had 13 consecutive balanced budgets," Gray said. "That's exactly what we intend to do with this budget."
Gray and Brown both said they would use their testimony to make the case for budget autonomy.
The mayor was arrested last month outside the Capitol while protesting the federal budget deal as an intrusion on home rule. In addition to bringing back a school voucher program favored by Republicans, the deal prohibited the district from spending local taxpayer dollars on abortions for poor women.
Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, a nonpartisan group that lobbies for more independence for the district, said Thursday's hearing was another unwelcome intrusion into local affairs. The group was planning another protest on Capitol Hill Wednesday.
"We suspect they have ulterior motives in holding this hearing," Zherka said. "We'll see on Thursday what those are."
Brown, however, said he had no reason to question Gowdy's motives.
"I've only known him to want to be helpful in terms of the District of Columbia," the council chairman told AP.
Gandhi will also testify Thursday, along with Jim Dinegar, CEO of the D.C. Board of Trade; Matt Fabian, a consultant on municipal bonds; and Alice Rivlin, a Brookings Institution economist and the former chair of the control board.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
