The fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget includes $88 million in additional revenues to help address the city’s $172 million budget gap for next year. Some of the revenue proposals would improve efforts to collect tax and non-tax revenues and to enforce the city’s traffic laws, which require additional staffing and equipment. Taking these associated costs into account, the net revenue increase is $82 million.
The increase in revenues largely will occur without changes to fees or taxes on residents and businesses. Just $13 million of the new resources will come from changes in tax policy. These include a limit to planned increases in three tax deductions, and a new fee for taxi rides.
Even with these increases, revenue collections in FY 2013 will remain slightly lower than in FY 2008 ‘ when the recession began ‘ after adjusting for inflation. This suggests that the District’s finances are recovering from the downturn but have not fully returned to pre-recession levels. While revenues are almost back to the FY 2008 level, the costs of many public services have risen, due to increased school enrollment, higher Medicaid caseloads, and other factors.
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