BUDGET UPDATE AND MORE

In my last blog post (Will Disabled People Bear the Brunt of Shared Sacrifice?), I discussed the state of play with the fiscal year (FY) 2025 DDS budget, in particular the mayor's proposed elimination of the clothing allowance for people getting residential services and the curtailment of administrative fees paid to provider agencies.  Fortunately, the chair of the Facilities and Family Services committee, councilmember Janeese Lewis George, was able to partially restore both amounts in the budget finally passed by the full council, although there are slight differences in the impact this will have on later-year budgets, as explained by Director Andy Reese in the last ten minutes of June’s DDS forum (June 28 2024 DDS forum, starting at minute 1:11:00). To recap and summarize:

 -   Historically, residential providers have received $600/year ($50/month) for clothing purchases on behalf of people they support.  The mayor’s budget proposed to remove the clothing allowance entirely, but the council restored 56% of the cut, so in FY 2025 the individual clothing allowance will be $336/year, or $28/month. (In terms of the budget, the council restored $416,000 of the proposed $744,000 reduction.)  The further news is that this amount will become part of the base, or continuing, budget going forward as planning for FY 2026 and later years begins.

 -   A second proposal was to reduce the total administrative fees, which are negotiated individually with residential providers under human care agreements (HCAs), by half - from the FY 2024 amount of $2.9 million to a little more than $1.4 million in FY 2025.  The council restored $900,000, so the FY 2025 total is a little over $2.3 million – but unlike the clothing allowance, this is a onetime restoration of funds and will not be in the base, or continuing, budget going forward, which means the “starting point” for FY 2026 will be $1.4 million unless the additional funding can be found somewhere.

The June 28 forum also included an explanation from Reese that there have been payment delays, though no outright budget reductions, from RSA to provider agencies over this past year (FY 2024).  Reese explained (in the last five minutes of the June 28 recording) that the complicated way in which RSA grant funds are provided and expended did trigger delays and led to internal discussions of a possible RSA waitlist, but that has so far not occurred. 

As I pointed out last month, and as Reese reiterated in the June forum, reductions to DDS funding and other parts of the DC budget for FY 2025 spell greater difficulty in future funding deliberations than we have seen in many years. For this reason, Reese has proposed to begin talking with advocates in September about how to shape the FY 2026 budget in a way that protects the most crucial priorities for the disability community in DC. So stay tuned for more information on that, and prepare to get involved in those discussions this coming fall and spring - Councilmember Lewis George’s fantastic staffer on our issues, Sebastian Weinmann (sweinmann@dccouncil.gov), made a special point of saying that the excellent turnout by advocates was what had made it possible for Lewis George to accomplish what she was able to in the council’s FY 2025 budget revisions.

And now, an important footnote:  DC Quality Trust, a unique organization with deep and meaningful roots in DC, will hold its annual gala next month at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, 1000 H St NW (QT Summer Breeze Gala on August 18).  It’s hard to overstate how much difference QT makes, in ways large and small, sometimes visibly but often behind the scenes - so turn out in force to show you believe in QT's mission and want them around for decades to come! DO NOT MISS THIS if you're in town, and if you aren't, be sure to donate anyway!