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DC Public Works Committee approves FY26 budget report, flags $9.3M stormwater transfer
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Summary
The Council’s Committee on Public Works and Operations on June 24 approved its FY26 budget report and Budget Support Act recommendations, funding permanent DPW positions, public restrooms and expanded composting while warning a $9.3 million stormwater-fund transfer for street sweeping likely must be reversed.
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, chair of the Committee on Public Works and Operations, moved and the committee approved its report and recommendations on the District’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget and related Budget Support Act subtitles during an additional meeting on June 24 at the John A. Wilson Building.
The committee report redirects one-time proposals in the mayor’s budget into longer-term investments for the Department of Public Works (DPW), funds more public restrooms and composting access, restores some human-services funding, and recommends narrowing or removing several mayoral Budget Support Act subtitles while approving a limited set of the mayor’s proposed changes.
The report matters because it shapes how DPW and other agencies will staff and operate daily services residents rely on, and it raises a potential legal and funding risk connected to the mayor’s proposed use of a Stormwater Permit Review Fund allocation. Nadeau said the committee converted a mayoral proposal advertised as a one-year continuation of term positions into permanent staff to “fund higher salaries and permanent positions, even for entry level jobs,” and added 20 corridor-cleaning positions and other sanitation enhancements.
Nadeau told the committee that the mayor had proposed roughly $4 million for a temporary corridor-cleaning initiative but “the executive could barely provide even the most basic of details, like a list of the corridors included in the initiative.” The committee instead used that money to create permanent positions and to bolster existing commercial-corridor clean teams.
The committee raised particular concern about $9.3 million the mayor budgeted from the Stormwater Permit Review Fund for DPW’s street-sweeping program. Nadeau said, “It’s curiously budgeted as one-time funding encoded as IT maintenance. As we learned at our hearing, it’s simply a holding pen for those dollars.” She and staff said the special-purpose account carrying those dollars has an escrow requirement; using the funds as proposed could risk violating that requirement and jeopardizing federal environmental funding. The committee did not make that change and signaled the money will likely need to be returned to the special-purpose account before the full Council finalizes the budget.
The report also funds a new program analyst position to support performance evaluation of street sweeping after the committee noted inefficiencies in how sweeping blocks are selected; Nadeau said the District spends about $2,500 per mile of street swept. Other DPW investments in the committee report include consolidating park litter and recycling collection at DPW rather than splitting responsibility with the Department of General Services, expanding curbside composting from 9,000 to 12,000 households, funding more than 250 new public litter and recycling cans, and adding 10 neighborhood “smart bins” for 24-hour food-waste dropoff.
On social-services and regulatory items, the committee transferred $6.4 million to the Committee on Human Services to avert cuts to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs and funded home-visiting programs for expectant parents through a transfer to the Committee on Health. The committee also recommended approving changes to the Budget Support Act’s vending subtitle with most substantive new penalties removed to preserve only provisions that support implementation of current law.
The committee addressed the mayor’s Project Labor Agreement (PLA) subtitle, which would raise the PLA threshold from $50 million (set by the 2024 amendment) to $100 million and delay PLA applicability for projects until inclusion in future capital plans. The committee said that change would reduce the number of projects requiring PLAs and, while unable to strike the subtitle because of projected costs of removal, recommended working with the Committee of the Whole to limit its effect.
The committee recommended and funded the Public Restrooms Program Amendment Act of 2025, restoring funding for six standalone public restrooms and adding four units in specified locations, and it accepted transfers to grow the permanent program at DPW. Nadeau said a two-year pilot at DPW had a survey showing a 90% approval rating.
Councilmembers Janice Lewis George, Robert White and Wendell Felder spoke in support of the report during the meeting and thanked the committee staff and agency personnel for their work. After a voice vote—“All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye”—the chair said, “The ayes have it,” and the committee adjourned.
The committee’s report will proceed to the full Council; staff were granted leave to make technical and editorial changes to conform the report for that next step.
