The District budget probably won’t be finalized until August, Charles Allen told Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6C May 14. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) met with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and DC Council the same day, the Councilmember said.
The FY 2026 year begins Oct. 1, 2025.
Allen said that DC Council decided to just put the Mayor and the CFO in the same room, “because they seem to be pointing fingers at each other up until this point, very much in arm in arm that they’ve got this all figured out.”
Allen said that the Mayor has submitted the budget to the CFO. Now, the CFO will take 10 days to review it and ensure it is balanced. After that, it will be sent to DC Council, meaning council can expect to receive the budget proposal about the Memorial Day weekend.
Receipt by council will begin the 70-day clock during which DC Council will hold hearings, review and approve a budget.
It’s late for DC, which for more than a decade has been on-time and on-balance. The District budget is usually finalized by late May or early June.
In ten days time, the Mayor will submit supplemental budget cuts, necessitated by the $1.1 billion withhold in District funds created by the federal Continuing Resolution (CR) which mistakenly treated the District as a federal entity, rather than exempting it as has been done for years.
The CR made it illegal for DC to spend above FY2024 levels, a decision taken 7 months into the FY2025 fiscal year. While the Senate ed a bill correcting this error two months ago, the House has yet to address it. Allen said that the Mayor has not shared the details of those cuts.
Allen said he expects council to hold multiple public hearings on the budget once it is introduced. He has repeatedly said it will be one of the most challenging budgets he will confont in his career. His office will hold town halls to understand what constituents want to see included in the budget, cut from it and also to augment District revenue. Allen said his office currently expects to hold their budget town hall, originally scheduled for April, in mid-June.
At the same time as the city will contemplate $800 million in cuts to the FY2026 budget, the Mayor has proposed what she has framed as a $850 million District cost to bring an NFL stadium to RFK Campus for the Washington Commanders. Allen was clear that he has not changed his, by now, decade-long position on the matter: that an NFL stadium is not a revenue-generator and that the property could be better utilized.
While he opposed a stadium completely (together, it is understood, with Council Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1-D) and Janeese Lewis-George (Ward 4-D), Allen said that a majority of DC Council opposed the deal as presented, even those who ed the idea of an NFL stadium on the site.
Allen said that the deal as proposed was bad for the District, citing the fact that the large wall of parking garages would not only separate the residents of Kingman Park from the site and the recreational facilities of the Fields of RFK, but would also generate zero revenue for the city.
Further, given that the goal is to create a new neighborhood, he argued that it “makes no sense” that there is no funding for metro; thousands of additional residents should indicate a need for public transit.
If the stadium is built, Allen said, there should be major changes to the deal.
Allen’s statements come one day after At-Large Councilmember Kenyon McDuffie (i) offered his views at a meeting of the Ward 6 Democrats. McDuffie, who spoke to the group at large and then to individuals at Mr. Henry’s lounge upstairs, said that the deal “won’t be a giveaway” and that DC Council will conduct a process. However, he was clear that he ed the deal and that he saw the Commanders deal as a catalyst for change on a dormant site. Others have indicated that the deal is very likely to happen, although council are not comfortable with current .
Sources indicate that DC Council will resist the Mayor’s deadline; she has asked that DC Council finalize the of the NFL deal for RFK by July 15, all the more unlikely given Allen’s notes on the timeline on the overall DC budget.
