Here are resources for this year’s performance and budget hearings in the District

The District’s legislative branch, the DC Council, begins its yearly performance oversight hearings in January. The 2023 season is well underway, and budget hearings for fiscal year 2024, which will kick off in March, are rapidly approaching.

GGWash has regularly testified at performance oversight and budget hearings that are relevant to housing, transportation, and land use. In this post, we’re sharing some resources with you on how to do so yourself. We’ve also got an ask to make of you, to request that your elected officials preserve funding for Metro for DC, and release a completed report on how road (otherwise known as congestion) pricing might work in the District.

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Per the council itself: “The council has instituted several measures to ensure that the city government works. Council committees review the performance of government programs and agencies to ensure they are serving their established purposes and operating under pertinent regulations and budget targets. The council also holds annual budget oversight hearings in preparation for approving a city budget recommended by the mayor. The law requires that the District operate with a balanced budget so expenditures do not exceed income.”

The most critical information for performance oversight and budget hearings lives on this page, where you can find schedules and information on how to sign up to testify. On that page, the first PDF is for performance oversight hearing dates, and the third is for budget hearing dates; the second includes information on how to sign up. It’s organized by committee, because each committee has a different process for signing up for hearings, submitting testimony, and signing onto hearings. Witnesses can testify remotely.

For more details, watch our training videos on how to testify for both performance oversight and budget hearings. We held these last year, in 2022, but the information and techniques in them are still accurate and relevant.

For guidance on how to approach testifying at the current oversight hearings:

For guidance on how to approach testifying at the imminent budget hearings:

Additionally, the council’s own guide to testifying, and the guide from the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, are also helpful, though note that both are on testifying generally, not on performance or oversight specifically. Here’s a primer on reading the budget. If you have a question about the information in our trainings, feel free to reach out to me at abaca@ggwash.org, and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability.

What will GGWash be testifying on?

As GGWash’s DC policy director, I’ve signed up to testify at the performance oversight hearings for the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD; Monday, February 13, 2023); the Department of For-Hire Vehicles (DFHV), the Department of Public Works (DPW), and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (OP; all on Wednesday, February 15, 2023); the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Operations and Infrastructure (DMOI; Thursday, February 16, 2023); the Office of Planning and Office of Zoning (OP; Thursday, February 23, 2023); and the District Department of Transportation (DDOT; Mon., February 27, 2023).

I’ll be asking for—among other things!—the District to acquire and ground-lease more land, in lieu of disposing of parcels, and to file map amendments to increase all public sites to the maximum density allowed by the Future Land Use Map (DHCD and DMPED); to regulate transportation network companies (DFHV); to boot and tow cars with false temporary tags (DPW); to release the completed report on road pricing that was funded by a $450,000 allocation from the council in 2019 (DMOI and DDOT); for a memorandum of understanding for the implementation of Metro for DC to be completed ASAP (DDOT); to make necessary changes to our roadways to prevent drivers from killing or injuring others (DDOT); and for a rewrite of the Comprehensive Plan to be well underway by the beginning of 2025 (OP). I’m planning to submit budget testimony for the same agencies, and will be requesting that the council fund the aforementioned priorities.

As GGWash’s deputy executive director and executive director of the DC Sustainable Transportation coalition, Caitlin Rogger is planning to testify at the hearings for DPW; the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority/Washington Metrorail Safety Commission (WMATA, WMSC; February 17, 2023); DDOT; and DC Health. She’ll be asking for greater capacity and transparency for traffic and parking enforcement (DPW); for a multi-jurisdictional review of the effectiveness—or, utter ineffectiveness—of the regulatory relationship between WMATA and WMSC; for reconsideration of the current designs for the K Street NW Transitway in light of changing needs for downtown and the release of the road pricing report (DDOT); and for DC Health to be provided specific responsibilities and greater capacity to promote a healthy transportation system District-wide.

As GGWash’s policy officer and coordinator of the Transportation Equity Network, Kai Hall is planning to testify at DDOT’s performance oversight and budget hearings (Monday, February 27, 2023). He’ll be asking for a memorandum of understanding for the implementation of Metro for DC to be completed ASAP; for continued funding for the Bus Priority Project, for the continued coordination between DDOT and WMATA to cut wait times and increase reliability of bus service, and for DDOT to consider the equity implications of EV charger infrastructure rollout in public spaces across the city for transit riders and pedestrians.

As in previous years, we’ll post a roundup of our testimony.

I want to ask the council to do something.

That’s right. But, first, we’d actually like you to start by asking Mayor Muriel Bowser to do a couple of things: preserve funding for Metro for DC; and release a report on road pricing, which could generate $90 to $500 million in revenue per year and, also, vastly improve transportation in the District, that the administration has yet to make public.

These are two priorities for GGWash, and we’d greatly appreciate your vocalization of why one or both matters—for economic reasons, for accessibility reasons, because Metro for DC and charging drivers for the externalities they force upon others are complementary, for environmental reasons, or for reasons of your own—to our executive.

The best way to do so is to send an email to the Executive Office of the Mayor at eom@dc.gov and cc me, Alex Baca, at abaca@ggwash.org, and write, in your own words (it can be brief!) that you’d like Metro for DC to be funded via growth in the District’s ongoing revenue, which the Chief Financial Officer has confirmed is doable; for DDOT and WMATA to establish an MOU to executive Metro for DC, no later than March 2023; and for the road pricing report to be released. Many, many, many, many thanks.

Now, with that out of the way: testifying. The above videos are decent, if I do say so myself. Please give them a watch, if you can, especially the oversight one, which I went to great lengths to make fun by suggesting a “choose your fighter” approach to testimony style.

Again, check dates and signup instructions here. If you’re planning to testify, I strongly recommend reading the prehearing questions that committees require agencies to answer; those live here for performance oversight and here for budget (most will be posted in the next few weeks).

Because we are swiftly approaching oversight hearings that most GGWash readers might be interested in, remember that there is always the opportunity to submit written testimony before the record closes if you have something to say and can’t attend the meeting at the scheduled time. Plus that the length of time the record is open varies by committee, from five days to two weeks; again, read the instructions.