Fair Fridays

A weekly newsletter summarizing the work we’re doing, the campaigns we’re working on, and actions you can take to support a Fair Budget!

With our communities facing deep and dangerous cuts, it is important that we are all up-to-date on the scope of the cuts. While there are far more than what we are listing below, here are some of the most glaring examples of harm, with attention to our priorities.

Our main goal this season will be to reverse the Mayor’s harmful cuts and trickle down economic policies. We’ll push for new, progressive revenue raisers (taxes on the wealthiest residents and businesses) that transform a broken tax system that both deepens inequities and fails to raise the revenue we need to have an equitable budget. We center DC’s Black and brown working-class and poor residents in all of our analysis.

The Mayor’s budget proposal makes cuts to:

• Health care (cuts of more than $243.5 million at least, plus eligibility changes that drastically decrease access to care. Under the mayor’s changes to Medicaid and Alliance healthcare programs, around 52,000 Medicaid and Alliance participants will lose their coverage)

• ERAP (emergency rental assistance–to prevent displacement and eviction–reduced by over 80%, from a baseline that was already severely inadequate)

• Housing vouchers families and individuals experiencing homelessness (a fraction of what is needed for families, and 0 vouchers for individuals), plus significant rollbacks to protections (see section below on policy changes through the budget process)

• DC’s Child Tax Credit (eliminated, as families face rising costs and cuts to other programs)

• TANF (assistance for the families in deepest poverty, cuts to both benefits and eligibility)

• Protections and supports for immigrants

• Child care subsidies ($5.7 million) and the Pay Equity Fund and healthcare for early childhood educators (flat-funded for FY26–which is an effective cut since costs rise year-over-year–and eliminated completely in FY27)

• Domestic violence services and DV-specific housing (significant cuts to baseline funding, in spite of rising rates and need)

• Access to Justice civil legal services (⅔ of its budget cut, plus decreases in the amount of recurring funding for subsequent years, i.e., even bigger cuts)

• Community Schools (services to community using the schools as a hub, even as these programs serve many thousands of families)

• Community-based mental health services ($11.3 million in cuts, cutting consumer services in half), plus elimination of the Urgent Care Clinic at the courthouse and 50% cuts to ChAMPS child mobile mental health crisis program (showing the overall disdain for community wellbeing)

• The new jail (long in planning, the mayor proposes to privatize the construction and ownership of the jail, taking that large cost out of the capital budget, where she coincidentally needed money for the Commanders deal)

The budget proposal contains many policy changes that gut important protections of vulnerable groups. These changes should not be made through the budget process (or at all, but especially not sneaked in through the budget):

• A repeal of the Sanctuary Values Act, protecting immigrants

• A repeal of I-82, a widely popular voter initiative that passed with almost 74% of the vote, in support of eliminating the tipped minimum wage

• The RENTAL Act, which rolls back tenant protections, making it easier to evict people and removing Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) rights for many

• Rollbacks in protections for families and individuals experiencing homelessness: narrowing who is eligible for emergency shelter; allowing DC to place families with children in congregate shelter with unrelated adults; and decreasing due process rights for families in rapid rehousing

• Limitations on Paid Family Leave benefits for workers

What she funded that we find, umm, problematic:

• $972 million for capital investments in RFK campus for the Commanders

• $40 million extra for MPD, including even more incentives for police new hires

• Millions in ineffective and/or unproven subsidies for business

• Budget Oversight Hearings continue through June 17. Hearings are open for sign ups at the Hearings page. For most hearings, you must sign up before 5 pm on the second business day before the hearing (ex: if the hearing is Thursday, you must sign up by Tuesday 5 pm). This means you still have time to sign up for these hearings:

• • Tuesday – MPD and the Deputy Mayor for the Judiciary and Public Safety

  • Thursday – OVSJG (Office of Victims Services and Justice Grants), which includes all our domestic violence work and Access to Justice civil legal services

• SAVE THE DATE to be in person for the June 18th “Committee of the Whole” hearing on the full budget. 

  • Sign up to testify one last time about your top budget priorities! 

  • Join us in person at the Wilson Building where we will support each other as we testify, demand a just budget that chooses us, and show the Council our powerful solidarity.

  • Next week we’ll share a registration link so we know you are joining us.

• For your testimony: Reach out if you need talking points on any of our recommendations, all of which can be found in our #ChooseDC Budget Platform. 

  • Be sure to make a clear ask – how much funding is needed, for which program/agency. 

  • Use a short, simple solidarity statement

Use these talking points about taxes/revenue raisers to include messaging about how to tax wealth to reverse the cuts.

Monday, 6/9

–  Economic Justice: 12:30-2:00pm

Tuesday, 6/10
–  Community Safety:11:00-12:30pm
–  Education: 4:30-6pm

Thursday, 6/12

–  Food Access:10:00-11:30am
–  Fair Taxes and Public Deals
   1:00-2:30pm

Friday, 6/13

–  Health Justice: 1:00-2:00pm

Through the next few weeks, we have an opportunity to make our voices heard by testifying at Budget Oversight Hearings!

While each of us should make our voices heard and testify, it can be especially impactful for those with lived experience with the issues at hand to give public comments. We know that the process can be daunting, and our organizers are here to support constituents in identifying relevant hearings and developing their comments! Reach out to us (Sophia & Afeni) for support.

Where to learn more about the mayor’s budget proposal:

A First Look at the Mayor’s Budget: An Inequality Agenda, from our partners at DC Fiscal Policy Institute

Bowser’s budget slashes safety net programs, reflecting tougher economic times ahead, from WAMU’s Alex Koma

The Collins Council Report: A Tough Budget Season for Workers, Undocumented Residents — and Even the Council, from The Washington Informer’s Sam P.K. Collins

Wilson Building Bulletin, from The 51st’s Martin Austermuhle

Dreaming Out Loud’s Kelly Miller Farmers’ Market is opening for the summer starting next week! Catch them every Saturday June-November from 10am-1pm, they’ll be accepting; cash, credit/debit, SNAP/EBT, WIC FMNP, Senior FMNP, Produce Plus, Fresh Farm Bucks, Breadcoin! You can reach out to them with questions at farms@dreamingoutloud.org

“When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.” -Barack Obama

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