Jack Evans • November 15, 2012

Tuesday was a great day for our city, country and indeed the world. The initial election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was a historic and exciting event, and his reelection under- scores our ability to remake our government so it lives up to the highest ideals of our nation, both at home and abroad. His reelection brings both possibilities and responsibilities. The continued problems in the world’s financial systems pose distinct challenges to both our national and local economy. The responsibility of providing our residents with health care, an education, jobs, and real opportunities are high on the agenda. The threat of terrorism and war is something that can render any or all other priorities asunder.

I still believe Barack Obama’s pledge to create a new political framework in this nation, to reach across lines that have divided us to find solutions, is the right approach to finding practical solutions to the problems we face. As a region and a city we also have an agenda to pursue with the federal government – not the least of which is the question of full statehood and voting rights in Congress for the District. We also need to work to ensure the federal government partners with us to stimulate the economy – particularly by locating federal agencies right here in the District rather than in neighboring states.

At the local level, I believe it is important to bring people together again to work through problems we face here in the District. From days past, particularly in 2002-2003 when we faced budget challenges more severe than we do today, it was imperative that all the major stakeholders come together. While I know we won’t always agree on a plan of action, I look forward to having more dialogue with my col- leagues, the Mayor, and members of the community on budget and policy issues.

In Ward 2, I am, of course, excited about my reelection, and thank you to everyone who supported me. Our city and nation face some very interesting times ahead, but after last week’s election I have renewed energy, hope, and faith we can meet the challenges ahead. I heard unfortunately of a number of instances of inefficiencies or other problems in polling places – please let me know of any experiences you have had, positive or negative, that I can convey to the Board of Elections. On a final note – please be patient as we take down all our campaign signs – and if you see any that are still up after a week or two, please let me know.

Jack Evans • October 3, 2012

In this column, I typically try to focus on the types of issues that make the news and are important to a lot of residents in Ward 2 and across the city – taxes, education, ethics, public safety, and economic development. This week, I thought I would pull back the veil and show some of the inner workings of our government that are less glamorous but are nonetheless very important, and tell you why they may be more closely related to the newsworthy issues than you might think.

As chair of the Committee on Finance & Revenue, I have jurisdiction over legislative matters such as general obligation bond acts, revenue anticipation notes, industrial revenue bonds, and financing programs such as “TIFs,” or tax increment financing. I understand those topics may sound a little bit like what you would read when you have trouble sleeping rather than something to be passionate about, but they provide the critical nuts and bolts which enables the government to function smoothly.
Next week, for example, my committee will hold a hearing on the “General Obligation Bonds and Bond Anticipation Notes for Fiscal Years 2013-2018 Authorization Act of 2012.” This is the legislation allowing our capital projects planned for 2013 to 2018 to go forward. Specifically, the bill would authorize the District to issue general obligation bonds or bond anticipation notes of up to $3.75 billion. The proceeds will fund items such as school facilities, recreation facilities and government offices included in our Capital Improvements Plan.

As I discussed during the confirmation process for our Chief Financial Officer, our bond rating really comes into play here in determining the amount of interest we have to pay in exchange for renovated libraries, schools and parks. Since financing and other costs have to be included in our budget and financial plan, and represent around $1 billion per year, small changes in our bond rating can cost (or save!) us millions of dollars per year. This has a dramatic impact on the funds we can spend on education, public safety, economic development, and health and human services.

Finally, I have to put in a quick plug for our Washington Nationals. I was so happy to see the Nationals clinch a spot in the playoffs last week! Having successful professional sports teams is such a morale boost to the city (not to mention a big driver of tax revenue!). The Mayor announced that the John A. Wilson Building, the District’s city hall, will be lighted red at night for the duration of our playoff run to honor the Nationals’ first postseason appearance.

As always, please reach out to my office if you have any legislative ideas or government service issues I can help with. And don’t forget to catch some Nats games!

Jack Evans • September 20, 2012

Our first legislative session of the fall was this week, and I’m looking forward to finishing out the year on a positive note. For those of you who regularly read the Georgetowner, I recently wrote a piece highlighting a few gaps I see in our public schools and library services. Just before the summer recess, I introduced a bill to expand our library hours. This week, I introduced a bill that would require each public school to have a full time librarian, art teacher, and music teacher. It is hard for me to believe we continue to invest nearly $2 billion a year into our public schools—yes, that’s “billion”—with the highest per-pupil funding formula in the nation, and yet have the worst educational outcomes in the nation. This suggests to me our money is not being spent in the right places.

I also introduced a bill to limit the way the Council is able to intervene in the contracting process. Too often, we have seen allegations of ethical violations by members of the Council who are seen as advocating for or against a particular vendor that may have personal or campaign involvement with the member. Some of these contracts are for large amounts of money. I believe contracting should happen through a merit-based selection process insulated from political pressure.

On a related note, campaign finance reform is another area of focus for me this year. There will be a lot of discussion about new laws and regulations, even as the election cycle is in full swing, in light of the Mayor’s legislative proposal last month. Keep in mind the legal troubles several members of the government have been facing are not because the laws need changing, but rather because the laws already on the books have been allegedly violated. For ethics and campaign finance rules, I have consistently supported enhanced disclosure requirements, more rigorous enforcement when violations are discovered, and more meaningful penalties assessed on violators. Current practice is to simply assess a penalty a year after an election is already won; for example, politicians can view a penalty as simply a cost of doing business, and it is invariably paid with campaign funds rather than out of an elected official’s own pocket.

Last on the legislative front, I introduced a resolution again relating to the future possibility of a commuter tax. Many Virginia and Maryland residents take advantage of the infrastructure and business opportunities offered within the District every day, and yet don’t contribute to its upkeep through their income tax dollars. I have had productive discussions with Congressman Darrell Issa, who chairs the House Committee with oversight over the District, and believe we may have Republican support for this proposal along with concepts such as budget autonomy.

I look forward to the upcoming Council session and working on the challenges ahead.

Jack Evans • September 6, 2012

Summer is over, and the kids are all back at school. The routine has returned, and with it the District Council goes back into session Sept. 15. Our first legislative meeting will be held later this month.
Although the council doesn’t formally meet between July 15 and Sept. 15, a ward councilmember’s work is never done. My staff and I were busy all summer long addressing constituent issues around Ward 2, such as parking, sidewalks, traffic and city services. I was also pleased to attend a number of community events, such as the groundbreaking for the former Hurt Home. The Home is a public-private partnership that features a new residential development, while also offering an affordable housing component for visually impaired District residents.

On the subject of education, our public schools will continue to be a primary focus of mine this year. I was pleased to attend the annual school beautification day this summer and am committed to providing top-notch facilities for every student in Ward 2. I structured the funding for the School Modernization Act several years ago, committing $100 million per year to ensure that students in every ward in the city would have access to state-of-the-art facilities. Unfortunately, despite unparalleled facilities and the highest per-pupil operating budget in the nation, our schools continue to underperform. Despite having the most richly funded education system in the country, we don’t have a librarian or art teacher or music teacher in every school. This is unacceptable. I introduced a bill for increased library hours before recess and plan to introduce a bill relating to school librarians later this month. I just read that Montgomery County has library hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Compare that with nearly all our locations being closed on Sunday, and only limited alternating morning hours on weekdays. Finally, I believe it is important for our children and young adults to have arts education. I identified an additional $6.8 million in our last budget to fund arts initiatives in the District, filling a gap in programming left in our public schools.

Campaign finance reform is another area of focus for me this year. There will be a lot of discussion about new laws and regulations, even as the election cycle is in full swing, in light of Mayor Gray’s legislative proposal this week. Keep in mind that the legal troubles several members of the government have been facing are not because the laws need changing, but rather because the laws that are already on the books have been allegedly violated. For ethics and campaign finance rules, I have consistently supported enhanced disclosure requirements, more rigorous enforcement when violations are discovered and more meaningful penalties assessed on violators. Current practice is to simply assess a penalty a year after an election is already won. For example, politicians can view a penalty as simply a cost of doing business, and it is invariably paid with campaign funds rather than out of an elected official’s own pocket.

Finally, the mayor and council must continue to focus on economic development and job creation. As the economy continues to improve, we must take advantage of opportunities to enhance our city.

I look forward to the upcoming council session and working on the challenges ahead.

Jack Evans • July 27, 2012

Last week, the Council received an unusual
amount of attention when it considered
how a pending bill regarding taxicab
modernization might impact a new car service
called “Uber.” Anyone who was not familiar
with Uber before the debate likely is by now, and
I personally received about 5,000 emails from
concerned residents who want to make sure they
can continue to enjoy this transportation option.

Though there were strong opposing views on
the underlying taxicab bill, it sought to address
issues of importance to anyone who has ever
ridden in a D.C. taxi and wished for a better
experience. For example, the bill would move us
toward credit/debit card readers in all taxicabs, a
passenger information monitor displaying a trip
map and other content, and a driver information
monitor with an electronic manifest and GPS
navigation. In other words, as in so many areas
of our government, the District is finally moving
toward meeting baseline expectations that even
much smaller jurisdictions have been requiring
for years.

So how does this impact Uber? Uber is
a technology company that connects licensed
sedan drivers with consumers who want a convenient,
high-quality transportation option, through
the use of a smartphone app. Apparently, Uber’s
pricing model, which uses both a time and distance
factor for calculating rates, has been viewed
by the taxicab commission as operating in a legal
gray area despite existing regulations seeming
to permit such a rate. It was my position that
Uber’s status should be clarified in order to make
the service explicitly legal, but I disagreed with
Councilmember Cheh’s approach, which would
have mandated a minimum price for Uber that is
a full 5 times that of a taxi.

Councilmember Cheh presented her goal as being to simply maintain
status quo by memorializing the pricing structure
currently in place, but her draft would have also
subjected many other aspects of the business,
such as advertising and types of vehicles offered,
to taxicab commission regulation. Uber asserted
that any price floor would be counterproductive,
preventing them from being able to provide
lower costs to consumers if possible within their
business model.

I agree. When Councilmember Cheh was confronted
by other Councilmembers about the significance of making
this type of change to the proposed law
without an additional public hearing,
she removed all Uber provisions from the
bill pending further discussion in the fall.

Unfortunately, unless another change was
made to the bill, Councilmember Cheh’s action
would have forced Uber not only to continue to
operate in this gray area, subject to unfair ticketing
by the taxicab commission, but also subjected
them to additional regulation contained
in the larger taxi bill being passed that day.

To fix this situation, I offered an amendment, with
the support of my colleagues Tommy Wells,
David Catania, and Michael Brown, to explicitly
authorize Uber’s operations while providing
reasonable safeguards to protect the public.
Specifically, my amendment requires that: (1)
an estimated fare is available to the user when
the application is used to book a sedan; (2) the
method for calculating the fare structure is provided
by the business to the user of the mobile
application prior to booking a sedan; (3) upon
completion of the trip, the customer is provided
a receipt that lists the pick-up point, drop-off
point, and total fare paid; and (4) the business
providing the mobile application uses sedans that
are licensed.

After extensive debate and minor tweaks, my
amendment was accepted by the full Council,
with the exception of Councilmember Graham.
This part of the law will sunset on December
31, 2012, however, at which time we will have
to either extend the law or move a new consensus
legislative solution for Uber.

Advocates for additional government regulation will say that
all transportation services need to be heavily
regulated, but I would point out that the service
offered by Uber is a far cry from the days when
any D.C. resident or tourist getting a ride
to the airport in a taxi could count on only one
thing – that they would be charged a different
fare than the last time they went, even
from the same location, with no articulated rationale.

Uber provides clear pricing details tied to time and GPS
tracking, as well as a receipt containing a map of
the actual route taken, and its future competitors
undoubtedly will provide that level of information
as well. Inefficient routes are scrutinized by
customer support staff and adjusted if necessary.

Any attempts to overcharge would quickly be
remedied as consumers voted with their feet by
choosing other companies, filing a class action
lawsuit, or simply filing a complaint with their
credit card company. Absent that, it is not much
more difficult to file a suit in small claims court
than to make a taxicab commission complaint,
and by all accounts the outcomes are fairer in
the former venue.

A better arena for regulation is to address
the real need of preventing discrimination by
drivers in passengers picked up or destinations
serviced–unfortunately for those who are
pro-taxi commission, this factor also counsels
against subjecting Uber’s full business to taxi
commission oversight. While I hear anecdotal
evidence of taxi drivers making discriminatory
decisions as to which potential riders to stop and
pick up, Uber cannot be “hailed” but is rather is
pre-arranged at a pickup location. And while taxi
drivers concentrate their services in the central
business district and popular evening entertainment
areas, Uber will service any location within
the District. As Councilmember Alexander said
on the dais, Uber will pick up passengers east of
the Anacostia River routinely, and their final destination
is already confirmed before the pickup is
made. With a taxi dispatch, despite rules to the
contrary, I hear stories of folks waiting for two
hours, never to be picked up. And as to safety, all
of Uber’s drivers are licensed as sedan or limo
drivers in D.C., Virginia, or Maryland, and drive
routes predetermined through an iPhone application
and logged in the company’s GPS tracker
– adding an additional layer of regulation would
be akin to making lawyers pass bar exams, and
then saying their law firms have to somehow
take the exam, too, rather than simply apply for
the appropriate type of business license.

In addition to looking at Uber, it is important
to study the full landscape of transportation
options, including taxis, and I am pleased that
Councilmember Cheh is planning an additional
hearing in the fall. If the argument for a more
regulated Uber is that it otherwise places taxicabs
at a competitive disadvantage, perhaps we
need to explore ways to improve the quality and
thus competitive position of our taxis. I understand
that Uber partners with taxi drivers in
Chicago to accomplish this very purpose, which
might be a positive development here as well.
As with the LivingSocial debate, I would rather
encourage technology companies to have a presence
in the District than create incentives for
them to leave. Please let Councilmember Cheh
and your other elected representatives know of
your support for Uber’s service, and the need to
allow a new business to create jobs and operate
without unnecessary government interference. ?

Jack Evans • June 27, 2012

I was pleased by the Mayor Gray’s decision to reappoint Natwar Gandhi to another term as the District’s Chief Financial Officer. I have said many times I would not trade the District’s financial position with that of any other city, county or state in the country. The District had a $1.1 billion cumulative general fund balance in fiscal 2011, an increase of $215 million over the previous year. This is $1.6 billion above the District’s lowest fund balance level, which was minus $518 million during the control board period in 1996. Our audit last year was the District’s 15th consecutive clean audit, and our recently passed fiscal 2013 budget is the District’s 16th consecutive balanced budget.

Much of our success in maintaining fiscal discipline can be attributed to Gandhi. While the mayor and members of the District Council have at times criticized Gandhi’s conservative revenue forecasts, I believe having a surplus at the end of the year is better than finding ourselves with a deficit and the potential reintroduction of a control board. Particularly during this time of instability in our government, it is critical to have an independent CFO with a demonstrated commitment to maintaining integrity in financial projections, regardless of political pressure.

I have seen firsthand how difficult it is to bring efficiency into a government bureaucracy. This makes it all the more impressive that our Office of Tax and Revenue has modernized its systems and can issue income tax refunds in three to five days for electronically filed returns, and just ten days even for paper filings.

Perhaps most important to me is the District’s bond rating. The District must issue bonds to finance important infrastructure improvements, such as schools, libraries and parks. I cannot emphasize enough how adept Gandhi and his team are at communicating with the credit-rating agencies at our annual meeting in New York. These rating agencies determine how expensive it will be for us to borrow money. Meetings such as these help us to secure our Income Tax bond rating of “AAA” by S&P and “Aa1/AA+” by Moody’s and Fitch. Our general obligation bond ratings, which were considered “junk bonds” in the control board period, are now in the A+ and double-A range. The District has been recognized for its new highly-rated Income Tax Secured Revenue Bonds that help to ensure ongoing access to the financial markets with low interest rates. The initial issuance of these bonds gained recognition as one of the Bond Buyer newspaper’s “Deals of the Year” in 2010.

The credit-rating agencies now have a very positive view of the District’s financial position, and our bond issues are routinely oversubscribed and pay among the lowest interest rates among major cities. So I’m not just talking about a general sense I have as to Gandhi’s value – Gandhi’s work has led to tangible savings for the District. For example, the use of variable rate bonds has saved us more than $100 million. Finally, Dr. Gandhi has earned the respect of Capitol Hill. Members of Congress, which in many ways control the District’s finances, have great respect for him.

I am chairing a hearing of the Finance and Revenue Committee on Gandhi’s nomination on June 28 at 10 a.m. in room 500 of the Wilson building. I welcome any of you to testify or to submit written comments for the record. ?

Jack Evans • June 18, 2012

Given recent events and the attendant media scrutiny on the Council, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the positive things our government is doing and assure you all that I will continue to work hard for my constituents and the city as a whole. On Tuesday, June 5, the Council had its second and final vote on the Budget Support Act, and I think that it was a definitive improvement over last year’s budget and I want to highlight a few areas of interest.

First, I was pleased that this year’s budget proposal included no tax increases. One of the primary reasons I was unable to support last year’s budget was the inclusion of unnecessary tax increases to support our ever-expanding government. I believe the Mayor and my colleagues should find efficiencies within the agencies they oversee rather than asking our residents to pay continually higher taxes in the face of a recession. We are the only local government in the country to continue to pass the largest budget in our history every year despite the economic slowdown.

Within my committee, for example, I was able, in consultation with our Chief Financial Officer, to identify millions of dollars of unallocated funding through savings achieved in the Gallery Place tax increment refinancing. I was pleased to allocate some of these funds toward enhanced arts programming, which fills a gap in our public education system and supports our small business community. I also recommended additional funding toward marketing dollars that encourages additional tourism in the District. Studies have shown that both of these uses of government funds generate several dollars in new tax revenues for each dollar spent, which increases the pool of money we have for other items of importance to me, such as our libraries, parks, public safety, and education.

Another very positive development is that we were able to push back the implementation of the municipal bond tax another year. If you recall, the initial bond tax proposal initially considered last year would have been retroactive to interest earned on or after January 1, 2011. This was a shocking and unfair proposal. After some amendments, the tax was subsequently set to go into effect for interest earned on or after January 1, 2012, to be included in one’s tax filing in the spring of 2013 if a taxpayer files on an annual basis. As a result of the fiscal year 2012 supplemental budget bill, which we also passed on Tuesday, we were able to push back implementation an additional year, to interest earned beginning January 1, 2013, for inclusion in your tax filing in the spring of 2014. This is great in and of itself, as it provides relief for another year of this tax, and it also gives us another opportunity to seek to fully repeal the tax in next year’s budget prior to it taking effect. While I was disappointed that the municipal bond tax was not fully repealed in the budget, particularly after I had identified approximately $800,000 of the $1.1 million necessary for this repeal within my own committee, I am still hopeful for full repeal the next time we revisit the budget.

Thank you for all your letters of support during this difficult time, and let me again commit to you that our work will remain uninterrupted as we move forward with selecting an interim Council Chair pending a special election. ?

Jack Evans • May 17, 2012

Beginning on May 9, the council members got together around one table to discuss our budget priorities and contrast those with the items included in the Mayor Gray’s budget. First, a note on the process: this type of discussion has historically been very helpful, as it is a rare opportunity for the full council to get together and speak more candidly than they often feel they are able to in a more formal meeting setting. In the interest of open government, we have now brought television cameras and microphones into the room. While it is great that members of the public can now witness these discussions, I have found unfortunately that the addition of the public eye leads to political posturing and grandstanding, which can reduce the quantity of productive dialogue.

One of the high points of Wednesday’s discussion was regarding the restoration of funding for the Housing Production Trust Fund, which is a program I created the legislative authority for with then-council member Adrian Fenty. I am a big supporter of this program because it actually works to create affordable housing for those who need it. When I created the program, I also instituted a dedicated funding source from the deed and recordation tax revenue so that it would always have the resources it needed. Unfortunately, my colleagues have raided this money repeatedly, using it instead for the Rent Supplement Program. This program is supposed to help working families make rent payments by supplementing the amount of rent they are able to pay. Its predecessor program was eventually done away with when it was discovered that landlords would simply raise rents by the amount of the government supplement payment, thus resulting in a windfall for landlords who could have afforded the lower rents they had in place prior to the supplement, while providing no additional benefit to the working families. If my colleagues want to fund the Rent Supplement Program, they should look for strategic cuts within the social services and education budgets, which have grown without accountability, rather than taking money from programs that work.

Another topic of discussion was the proliferation of traffic enforcement cameras contemplated in the mayor’s budget. I have been skeptical of the idea of attempting to balance the budget on the basis of increased fees charged to residents, and it sounds like we may consider lowering the fees associated with certain moving violations to compensate for the idea of the extra enforcement, under the principal that a lower ticket value is needed to deter traffic violations if the certainty of enforcement is higher. We also discussed the proper allocation of new revenues from parking pilot areas. I think these funds should remain within our local neighborhoods where they are generated, as the mayor proposed. Councilmember Cheh has subsequently recommended, in contrast, that the funds be taken and spent in other parts of the city.

I am not yet sure what the final budget proposal by the council chairman will look like, but I am hopeful that we will fund priorities of mine, such as libraries and parks, arts and humanities as well as the repeal of the confusing tax on out-of-state municipal bonds. I would appreciate your support and ask that you contact me and my colleagues over the next week with your views.

Jack Evans • May 3, 2012

On Feb. 2, District of Columbia officials made their annual trip to Wall Street.  Every February, the mayor, the D.C. chairman, myself as head of the Committee on Finance and Revenue and chief financial officer Nat Ghandi visit the three bond rating agencies – Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings.  The purpose of the meeting is to present the District’s financial situation, which helps the rating agencies determine our bond rating.  Our bond rating is important for two reasons: it determines the amount of interest the District pays when borrowing money, and it acts as a report card on our overall financial health.

At the beginning of our fiscal year on Oct. 1, the District is authorized to borrow a large sum of money, typically several hundred of millions of dollars, for cash-flow purposes.  Over the course of the year, as our collections come in, the money is repaid.  Our big collection dates are January 15 (fourth quarter payments), March 15 (first half of property taxes), April 15 (income taxes), and September 15 (second half of property taxes).

Our bond rating determines the interest we pay on the money that we borrow – the higher the rating, the lower the interest.  For example, in the early- to mid-1990s, as the District’s finances     deteriorated, the bond rating fell to a “B,” greatly increasing the interest we paid.  By 1995, our finances were so bad that we couldn’t borrow money at all, which was the primary reason for the Control Board — which did what it sounds like: controlled D.C.’s finances. It was only when the Control Board came into existence in April 1995 that the District could once again borrow money.   

After the District met several criteria, the Control Board went dormant on Sept. 30, 2001.  But what many people don’t know is that it can be reactivated if any one of the following seven events occurs:

– Requisitioning by the mayor of advances from the Treasury
– Failure to provide sufficient revenue to the debt service reserve fund
– Default on borrowing
– Failure to meet payroll
– Existence of a cash deficit at the end of any quarter
– Failure to make required payments to pensions
– Failure to make required payments to entity under interstate compact

The Mayor and the council must remain focused to ensure that none of these seven “deadly sins” occur.

Over the years, our bond rating has increased from “junk bond” status to an “A+” on our General Obligation bonds and the highest rating of “AAA” on our income tax bonds.  The District’s finances remain strong, and we had a good story to tell when we visited the rating agencies on Wall Street. 

Jack Evans •

This week, the D.C. Council met at its annual retreat to review legislative priorities, receive briefings from various officials and make plans for the coming year. We also recently received the audit of the fiscal 2011 budget – known as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (“CAFR”), an event of particular interest to me as Chair of the Council’s Committee on Finance and Revenue. 

First, the good news from the fiscal 2011 CAFR: the District sustained its 15th annual balanced budget and unqualified “clean” audit. In short, our finances today are a far cry from the desperate straits we faced in the mid-1990s. The audit also confirmed we have no “material weaknesses” (we had two in fiscal 2008) and reduced our “significant deficiencies” from five to two. I am glad we have made meaningful progress on our internal control systems. Every year, the District spends millions of dollars on various audit functions – not only the CAFR, but also the operations of the D.C. Auditor and the Office of the Inspector General. A few years ago, we decided to pool all this information more systematically and bring in under-performing agencies to submit remediation plans to correct the deficiencies. This new approach has begun to pay off.

We finished fiscal 2011 with a surplus of nearly $240 million, which now resides in our savings accounts. While I am glad that our financial position remains so strong, this surplus has caused a lot of anger among the hundreds of thousands of District residents who were asked to pay a number of new taxes and fees in last year’s budget, which I voted against. Before we rush to spend this money on an ever-expanding government, I think we need to take a hard look at making more sustainable spending choices. We have already received briefings on the status of the current fiscal 2012 budget by Mayor Gray and are expecting the upcoming fiscal 2013 budget submission from the mayor in late March. While we have a windfall now, indications are that the mayor will seek to spend all of this money and more to address potential gaps in the budget if he does not begin to spend within his budget. 

Every year, seemingly, we face “spending pressures” in the middle of the fiscal year. As it is February, the mayor has the opportunity to review these problems and take corrective action so that we end fiscal 2012 with a balanced budget. A more difficult challenge will be the work of the mayor and the council to balance the fiscal 2013 budget. Unfortunately, the government has built in cost increases every year, so that we pass the biggest budget in our history each year in spite of the difficult economic climate. No other state goes through recessions without making tough spending choices as a result. Clearly, this spring we will have some very serious challenges facing us and many tough decisions to make. I hope that with your help we can convince the mayor and my colleagues to find efficiencies within existing agency budgets by making tough choices rather than simply increasing taxes every year.

Before the budget is released, we first go through the performance oversight process. Over the past two weeks, I have sent a number of questions to the agencies under my purview to collect data on agency structure and recent spending. After I review what has worked and what has not, I will be in a better position to make recommendations on adjustments to the agency budgets for next year. Thanks for your support during this process, and please feel free to contact my office as well as to my colleagues to share your views.