The stopgap spending bill that Republicans are pushing to avert a shutdown at the end of the week would effectively slash the District of Columbia’s budget by roughly $1 billion over the next six months, a change that local leaders warn would force dramatic cuts to essential services.
The reductions are under consideration because of a series of legislative quirks that Republicans are using to force the District, a Democratically run and predominantly Black city with a significant number of federal workers, to absorb the same freeze to its local budget that they are applying across the federal government. President Trump, who has demonized government employees, has said he wants to “take over” D.C.
Under a law that established “home rule” in Washington more than 50 years ago, Congress maintains power over the city, including final approval over its laws and annual budget. Historically, Congress has included routine language in its spending bills that approves the D.C. budget, about 75 percent of which is funded through local revenues.
But Republicans omitted the standard language from the temporary spending bill that is set to come to a vote in the House as early as Tuesday. That has thrust Washington’s fate into the center of a political debate over funding the U.S. government. Democrats could seek to block the measure in the Senate, but with a Friday deadline looming to keep federal funding flowing, doing so could earn them blame for a government shutdown.
The bill would largely freeze federal spending at levels approved last year and, if passed as currently written, would also force D.C. to return to the lower spending levels in its budget approved by Congress in 2024.
That would result in a cut of $1.1 billion mandated halfway through the fiscal year. It would require the District to cut 16 percent of all remaining funds that have not already been spent, according to a memo from Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s office sent to lawmakers over the weekend.
At a news conference outside the Capitol on Monday, D.C. leaders urged Congress to revisit the temporary spending measure, saying that the effects of the freeze could be “devastating” for the city, likely leading to layoffs in public safety and public schools.
Given that the budget freeze would come six months into the city’s fiscal year, the District would need to scramble within a matter of days to find a billion dollars in savings between now and the end of September.
Since much of that money was tied up in contracts, leases and Medicaid, all of which take time to be accessible, local officials warned that the most immediate target for the cuts would be the salaries of city workers, including police officers and teachers.
“There’s no way to cut that kind of money in the time that we would have in this fiscal year not to affect police or not to affect teachers and not to affect some of the basic government services that allow us to keep our city clean, safe and beautiful,” said Ms. Bowser, a Democrat who explicitly appealed to the president’s oft-spoken desire for a world-class capital.
Ms. Bowser said she had been in touch with the White House.
“They’ve indicated that it didn’t come from them,” she said of the omission.
Local officials complained that it was unfair to extend the spending freeze Republicans have agreed to apply to the federal government to Washington, since most of the money in the city’s budget comes from D.C. residents, not federal sources.
“It’s not really savings, because these are D.C. dollars,” said Phil Mendelson, the chairman of the D.C. Council. “Most folks, unfortunately, in this country think the District of Columbia is funded by the federal government. We are not.”
Most of the District’s funds are generated through local revenue. Another 24 percent comes through federal grants, while less than 1 percent comes from direct federal funds.
D.C. is required to submit a plan balancing its budget over five years, and Ms. Bowser last April had proposed about $500 million in cuts to city programs, including the elimination of a program that gives stipends to child care workers and early education teachers. The D.C. Council reversed most of those cuts, including by restoring $70 million to the child care program.
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents the District of Columbia as a delegate but has no vote in the House, on Monday proposed an amendment to the stopgap spending bill that would allow D.C. to proceed with its budget as planned.
“D.C. has not been treated as a federal agency for funding purposes in more than 20 years, precisely because doing so can force dramatic overnight cuts to essential services, including police, sanitation and schools,” Ms. Norton said. “Cuts to these services would work against Republicans’ stated goal of improving public safety and order in D.C.”
But it seemed unlikely that Republicans would agree to adopt it.
Republicans in Congress have increasingly sought to weigh in on D.C.’s governance. Last year, the G.O.P.-controlled House voted by large margins for two disapproval resolutions to overturn a pair of laws passed by the D.C. Council.
They have also used amendments on spending bills to ban the city’s ability to tax and regulate the sale of cannabis and prohibit the spending of city funds on abortion services for Medicaid recipients.