DC Council approves 2026 budget after considering amendments on tipped wage, ranked choice voting

After hours of debating a slew of last-minute amendments the D C Council voted to approve an almost billion budget for In the last day of debate ahead of the second and final vote on the budget multiple amendments were filed during the legislative hearing Council Chair Phil Mendelson called the countless last minute additions a little wacky One amendment that was approved unanimously was one that majority of council members didn t want to vote on It cut an additional million from the budget Mendelson who introduced the measure disclosed he introduced it under duress because the D C chief financial officer noted he will not certify the budget if it isn t balanced with a needed million pad of unspent funds Council member Janeese Lewis George was among the council members who expressed her anger over the cut I think we should all be angry about what we re being forced to do by a nonelected administrator who lacks the authority to appropriate funds she commented Initiative A lot of amendments introduced focused on whether Initiative would be fully or partially funded The initiative was approved by voters last year and called for ranked choice voting and open primaries in D C Ahead of the first vote the council agreed to fund half the measure allowing for ranked choice voting but not open primaries At-large Council member Anita Bonds and Ward Council member Zachary Parker were among those with amendments that called for studying how to set up ranked choice voting instead of paying to implement the system that allows voters to vote for more than one candidate and rank them on the ballot Ward Council member Brooke Pinto introduced one amendment that would have fully funded Initiative Just two weeks ago we implemented the first half of Initiative with a super majority of us This amendment just seeks to implement the other half of ranked choice voting as was passed by of D C voters to have semiopen primaries to allow independents to vote in our primary system Pinto explained However the measure failed Initiative and a child tax credit Another big discussion was over an amendment that would partially bring back the tipped minimum wage Initiative which Mayor Muriel Bowser called on the council to repeal It was an initiative approved to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers and called for a full minimum wage for tipped workers by Council member Christina Henderson proposed raising the minimum wage to of the minimum wage by It would happen through increases from the current an hour which would start going up every two years starting in The topic led to various in the audience being removed for outbursts Council member Lewis George spoke out against the amendment saying restaurants had time to prepare for the wage increase and the original initiative should continue Pinto spoke in backing of the measure saying the initiative as written is unsustainable for restaurants especially those that are small businesses Let s remember restaurants for the largest part part are small businesses Pinto commented In the end the amendment failed and it appears the council is poised to revisit what to do in the fall There was also heated debate over an amendment from Council members Parker and Pinto that called for partially restoring funding for a Child Tax Credit Funding the credit would be done by removing certain money from a campaign that pays for legal assistance for those who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer Cutting access to justice is shameful Mendelson commented The measure failed Source