Funding for a new stadium, a set minimum wage for tipped workers and additional support for DNA testing are among the major highlights from the D.C. budget released by the council ahead of a vote on Monday.
The D.C. Council released the proposed budget Sunday afternoon, and it has some notable changes.
At a news conference after the announcement, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson criticized Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget proposal for being excessive.
“It is spending above what was appropriated,” he said. “It is in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act and we should not have to fund that. The mayor should not be overspending, and the CFO should not be allowing the overspending.”
D.C.’s Anti-Deficiency Act restricts government officials from exceeding available funds or without proper authorization. This is to prevent agencies from spending more than the legislature has allotted.
In the 2026 budget, Bowser included the funding for the redevelopment of the RFK Stadium campus in her budget.
The council said it “recognizes the once-in-a-generation opportunity the District has to redevelop the RFK campus and bring the Commanders back to their rightful home in the District. However, the Committee also recognizes that the Council needs more time to consider the proposed deal, which would commit the District to spending well above $1.0 billion over the coming decade.”
The mayor’s proposed deal allows the Commanders to build a new stadium, team offices and parking garages.
The plan includes about a $500 million commitment from D.C. to help build the stadium plus $365 million from the city and Events DC for parking garages.
The council said the stadium funding, which also gives the team development rights for most of the remaining RFK campus, allowing it to build and operate housing and stores on the site, is in stand-alone legislation that will be voted on without attachment to the budget bill. That legislation would have the city contribute another $202 million for infrastructure improvements and tax abatements.
In an emergency vote in June, the D.C. Council voted to pause the increase of the tipped minimum wage in the city, which would have taken effect July 1.
Initiative 82 was passed by an overwhelming majority of D.C. voters in 2022 and was set to raise the minimum wage of tipped workers, such as restaurant employees or hair stylists, from $10 to $12 in July 2025 to $17.50 by 2027.
The council is now set to change that further. Included in the council’s budget is the “Tipped Minimum Wage Amendment Act of 2025,” which will set the tipped minimum wage at $8 an hour and would require an employer to cover the difference between the employees’ earnings, including tips, and $20 an hour. It also allows for automatic adjustment of the tipped minimum wage for inflation.
When it comes to restaurant service fees, the council budget would cap those at 10%.
The D.C. Council budget includes $3.5 million to the Department of Forensic Sciences for “the ability to conduct in-house DNA testing.”
The council also includes $5.4 million in “one-time funds” to the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement to restore funding for six “Cure the Streets” sites. The program aims to work in “discrete high violence neighborhoods using a data-driven, public-health approach to gun violence by treating it as a disease that can be interrupted, treated, and stopped from spreading.”
The program has had success since launching in 2024. It currently operates sites in Wards 1-8 and last year saw an 18% drop in assaults with a deadly weapon near those locations. Two sites saw more than 50% declines in violent incidents.
The District Department of Transportation in the budget would receive $250,000 in one-time funds to continue providing rebates or vouchers to District residents for the purchase of electric bicycles.
Mendelson told WTOP that he wishes the council could have changed more budget items of concern, especially surrounding the child tax credit and environmental programs.
“I think the child tax credit has to be more robust then even what we adopted last year, and I think that’s where we have to go,” Mendelson said.
“Environmental programs are very troubling,” he said, adding that the mayor has made “complicated maneuvers” surrounding the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund. “It’s a fee on utility bills, and she’s sort of moved it through different agencies so that it ends up paying the city’s utility bills,” Mendelson said. “To unwind that is not only expensive, but very complicated,”
He also said he would have liked the budget to better address affordable housing issues.
WTOP’s Jimmy Alexander and Diane Morris contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show that the Council has not taken funding for RFK stadium out of the proposed budget.
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