Mayor Muriel Bowser submitted her proposed Fiscal Year 2025 budget to the DC Council on April 3, 2024. Budget documents available at https://cfo.dc.gov/node/289642.

The mayor’s office prepared Ward budget information sheets:

Ward 4 Information Sheet

Ward 5 Information Sheet

The new budget hearing schedule is available at https://dccouncil.gov/2023-2024-performance-oversight-fy-2025-budget-schedules. Budget hearings provide a good opportunity to continue advocating for longstanding neighborhood requests. Use the hearing portal to sign up to testify or to submit written testimony.

Neighbor Gavin took a preliminary look at the budget proposal for a few items of interest to our neighborhood.

DDOT

• Includes $13 million for Met Branch Trail First Place NE to Oglethorpe Street NW segment. This is currently being built partially as an on-street alignment in the Manor Park area because initially NPS would not approve building it off-street on NPS land. There were talks of an environmental assessment for an off-street alignment, but unclear where things stand with that.

• A bit farther afield, but the budget also includes new funding for the Military Road Trail (Oregon Avenue to Beach Drive section). There is a long-term vision for a Fort Circle Parks Trail that would link all the Fort Circle Parks. From Fort Totten to the northwest, that would go to Fort Slocum, then Fort Stevens, then need to cross through Rock Creek Park to the west. The Military Road Trail would, in effect, build the segment crossing Rock Creek Park. The MBT Manor Park segment would build most of the distance between Fort Totten and Fort Slocum. The MBT Fort Totten to Avondale segment, mentioned below, would build much of the distance between Fort Totten and Barnard Hill. So this segment, while not in our neighborhood, is part of a network planned to come here.

• The Eastern Ave. rehabilitation project is still listed but do not see more details about the amount or timing.

• The $1 million that Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker got last year for South Dakota Avenue safety improvements is reallocated to the general safety line. Do not know if that is just budgetary reorganization or if it reflects the Mayor’s plan to not spend that money on South Dakota Avenue.

• Do not see the Fort Totten to Avondale segment of the MBT, which both CM Parker and Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George requested in FY25. (Think a very small stub of this, at the Maryland line, is included in DDOT’s general plans without specific mention in the budget.) If the Manor Park segment is ready to move, maybe they are prioritizing that.

DCPS

• LaSalle-Backus Elementary School modernization is included, amounts and timing unchanged from last year.

• New $18 million for swing space for Whittier Elementary School modernization, which will push that modernization back a year. So far have not seen anything about how that will affect the LaSalle-Backus modernization, but it raises the question of whether that swing space could be used for LaSalle after Whittier. (Whittier is now scheduled to be in a swing space in FY 27-28, and LaSalle in FY 28-29. Presumably they could not both use it during FY28, but it might make sense to push LaSalle back a year in order to use that space.)

UDC

• Looks like no new funding for Lamond-Riggs Campus expansion (but looks like prior funds remain available). Lamond-Riggs Campus is included in some cross-campus projects for minor improvements like HVAC.

DPR

• FY25 spend plan includes synthetic turf replacement at Riggs-LaSalle.

• DPR: FY25 spend plan includes playground equipment and surfacing at North Michigan Park. (There was $250K for this in the FY23 budget, not sure where that went)

Gavin also noted that the Deputy Mayor for Education just released the DC Public Education Master Facilities Plan. One interesting appendix is “Future housing pipeline yields.” It estimates the number of additional elementary school students in 5 years, per DCPS boundary school, based on 2 factors:

1. Turnover in senior housing: i.e., the primary occupant is 65+ and will move out in the next 5 years
2. New housing development delivering in the next 5 years

For turnover in senior housing, the top 3 schools in DC are all nearby (school boundary map):

1. Bunker Hill (N./Michigan Park, etc.): 247 students
2. Whittier (Lamond & Manor Park): 222 students
3. LaSalle-Backus (Riggs Park): 170 students

So basically, this part of town has more houses than anywhere else in DC where seniors currently live, and young families are going to move into soon — hundreds of them.

For new housing development, Bunker Hill is 9th citywide, LaSalle is 16th, and Whittier is 39th. This is out of 74 elementary school boundaries. So, not as high on new housing, but Bunker Hill and LaSalle are still in the top quartile.