Norton Celebrates On-Time D.C. Budget Passage, Now a Permanent Practice - September 29, 2006

Norton Celebrates On-Time D.C. Budget and Says Timely Passage Now a Permanent Practice
September 29, 2006

Washington, DC--For the fourth year in a row, the D.C. government will begin spending its own local money on time on October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year, atnext year's FY '07 levels,with Senate passage of unique authority in a Senate and House continuing resolution (CR) today. Until Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) negotiated the new procedure with Senate and House appropriators, D.C. was able to spend its own taxpayer raised funds only at the prior year's spending levels, pending a final appropriations bill, which often came in November or December instead of the end of the fiscal year on September 30. "This procedure guaranteeing on-time passage of the District's locally raised budget has now become a permanent practice. It is a far cry and a huge relief from the handicaps to city operations from budgets approved two and even three months late.

The District's local budget is the only appropriation in the CR permitted to spend at the next fiscal year's levels. The other appropriations in the package are federal agencies which are authorized to spend only at the levels appropriated last year, regardless of increased expenses. The District was treated similarly, as if it were a federal agency, until four years ago, when Norton convinced appropriators to use a new procedure freeing D.C.'s entire local budget as passed by the City Council. She argued that it was punitive and unnecessary to hamper vital city operations, and to keep important new programs from starting, even though they were funded entirely by local funds. "The ability to meet increased expenditures, operate new programs, enter and pay new contracts, and acquire needed equipment is the heart and soul of a smooth running city," Norton said, "and that is impossible with the delays caused by the typical CRs that were always applied to the city in the past."

Norton's top priority for next year is full budget autonomy that would allow the District to spend its locally raised budget without sending it to the Congress at all. A mid-year budget autonomy provision passed by Congress earlier this week permits the city to spend the local funds it has collected since the last appropriation without coming back to Congress for approval during the congressional mid-year supplemental appropriations process.

Budget and legislative autonomy are included in a group of nine bills Norton has introduced as the "Free and Equal D.C." series. They seek to eliminate anti-home rule legislation and to remedy obsolete or inappropriate intervention into the local affairs of the District of Columbia or denials of federal benefits or recognition routinely granted to other jurisdictions.