We're Getting Closer to a Budget

I imagine most of you are following the headline news with respect to DC's FY2026 budget, but in case you aren't, here is Martin Austermuhle's most recent article in The 51st to cover that territory,

Our issues don't make it into the headlines though, so to clarify:  the $1 million in one-time administrative fees that the Facilities committee restored remained in the DDS budget passed by the council in its first vote, BUT the $1.61 million (which I mistakenly rounded up to $1.7 million in my last post) that the committee stripped from DDS waiver funding was not put back in, since the committee felt it was needed for other important disability-related funding and questioned DDS director Reese's claim that the reduction could lead to a wait list for the waiver later in the year.

There will be another council vote on the budget July 28, but I wouldn't expect this money to show back up in the budget.  This won't have an immediate impact on DDA services, but it adds to future uncertainty, already on the horizon due to federal-level Medicaid changes.  In brief, there's going to be plenty of need for advocacy as the coming year unfolds.

[While you're here, take a look at the first post of my weekly "DClives" Substack newsletter, "Real People."]

And a short postscript:  You may have noticed that former councilmember Trayon White is projected to have defeated his three opponents in the July 15 Ward 8 special election, which could lead to another showdown with colleagues in the council.  The Ward 8 seat on the council has been vacant since White was expelled in February.

FY2026 DDS Budget: Where Do We Stand?

In my last blog post I was encouraging folks to attend the June 16 hearing on the DDS budget.  That hearing has now taken place, and you can find the video by going to this page and selecting the June 16 hearing – the Office of Disability Rights and the Mayor’s Office of Deaf, Deafblind, and Hard of Hearing come first and are extremely interesting themselves, but the DDS segment starts about an hour and 53 minutes (1:53) into the video.

Since the hearing, Councilmember Lewis George has issued her committee report.  The most notable elements in the committee report are: 1) a one-time increase of $1 million in administrative fees for DDA provider agencies but 2) more confusingly, a cut of $1.7 million in operating funds for the HCBS waiver budget.  The committee report states that this “1.4% reduction should not diminish services to those people receiving waiver supports and services from DDA,” but DDS seems to believe otherwise so it seems discussions between the administration and the council are continuing on this. Hopefully this confusion will be resolved in the next week.

The first full-council vote on the FY2026 budget will take place on July 14, with the final budget vote scheduled for July 28.