Federal funds make up nearly 30 percent of DC’s budget and provide funding to support critical services to our city such as transportation, HIV/AIDS care, and job training. Yet there is very little information in DC’s budget about how these funds are used. Increased information on federal funds could support better decision-making on how DC will use federal funds to help fund critical programs and services for DC residents.
Federal dollars make up a significant portion of the budgets for many DC agencies. For example, 43 percent of what the Department of Employment Services spends comes from the federal government. The Department of Health gets 62 percent of its funding from federal sources and the Department of Housing and Community Development’s budget is 55 percent federal dollars.
Yet, there is no way to connect the dots between the federal grants an agency is awarded and how that grant might be spent on specific programs and services. For example, the budget for the Department of Health provides a listing of all of the federal grants DOH is expected to receive, but it does not lay out how each of those federal funding sources will be allocated among DOH programs and services.
Also, federal grants awards sometimes cover a number of years and many times the agency does not spend the entire grant award in one year. There is no way from DC’s current budget to determine what the carryover amount is and where that money might be spent. Nor is there a specific accounting of what has been spent in prior years.
The lack of transparency in federal funds can have serious consequences too. Remember in 2009 when funds for homeless services were suddenly cut by 30 percent? No one had any idea that homeless services were being supported with the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant funds ‘ and that the carryover money from that block grant that was being used to fund homeless services had run out. Greater transparency would have helped shed light on this issue.
There are a number of steps DC could take to help shed light on this important part of the budget. Maryland, for example, has a detailed report of federal grants the state uses that includes a description of the grant, the grant formula, the program and population served and an estimate of the amount to be spent within an agency. DC could also include a table in the budget books, or separately in its online budget tool, CFO Info, that would list this type of information (an example can be found here).
And lastly, federal funds can also be made a more visible part of the annual budget oversight process. The Committee on Health, for example, asks the agencies under their purview to report which federal grants they were awarded, the purpose of the grant, the effective dates, and any carryover funds that there might be. This should become a standard part of every Committee’s oversight process during budget season and the information should be easily accessible to the public.
