[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
YEAR 2000 PREVIEW
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 21, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-124
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Lisa Smith Arafune, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
STEPHEN HORN, California DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Howie Denis, Staff Director and Counsel
Anne Barnes, Professional Staff Member
Melissa Wojciak, Professional Staff Member
Jenny Mayer, Clerk
Jon Bouker, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on January 21, 2000................................. 1
Statement of:
Williams, Anthony, Mayor, District of Columbia; Alice Rivlin,
chair, District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and
Management Assistance Authority (D.C. Control Board); and
Linda Cropp, chair, District of Columbia City Council...... 23
Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:
Cropp, Linda, chair, District of Columbia City Council,
prepared statement of...................................... 48
Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 4
Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 18
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Representative in Congress
from the District of Columbia, prepared statement of....... 13
Rivlin, Alice, chair, District of Columbia Financial
Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority (D.C.
Control Board), prepared statement of...................... 40
Williams, Anthony, Mayor, District of Columbia, prepared
statement of............................................... 29
YEAR 2000 PREVIEW
----------
FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas M. Davis
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Davis, Morella, and Norton.
Staff present: Howie Denis, staff director/counsel; Anne
Barnes and Melissa Wojciak, professional staff members; David
Marin, communications director; Jenny Mayer, clerk; Jon Bouker,
minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Davis. Good morning. The hearing will come to order.
Welcome to the first hearing of the new millennium of this
subcommittee.
It is a very cold morning in Washington. I was telling Ms.
Norton it was so cold on Capitol Hill this morning Members of
Congress had their hands in their own pockets just to stay
warm. It's one of those days.
You know, back in the last century, and sometimes it seems
like almost 100 years ago, the District of Columbia was in the
midst of a crisis of epic proportions. Exactly 10 years ago,
the commission, chaired by Dr. Alice Rivlin, prophetically
warned of an impending disaster. Exactly 5 years ago when this
subcommittee was created, the disaster was upon the city and,
therefore, upon the entire Washington area.
At our very first hearing on February 22, 1995, I stated
that the District of Columbia faced a spending problem of
monumental proportions and a management failure as well. The
crisis was so severe that the District government couldn't
deliver basic services. There was very real concerns that the
city would run out of cash to pay debt service or meet its
payroll.
We formed a bipartisan bond with the ranking member of the
subcommittee, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and we've worked together
ever since to resolve the crisis working with city officials,
working with the administration and others and then move
forward.
I am grateful for all of the subcommittee members and
congressional leaders in both parties, House and Senate, for
devoting so much effort to these issues. I am grateful as well
to the Clinton administration for working with us in a very
cooperative manner. We have put partisanship and politics aside
when it comes to our Nation's Capital.
As Congress has a unique quasimunicipal charge under the
District clause of the Constitution, this subcommittee's issues
are likewise unique. Along with bringing the Control Board into
existence in 1995 and revising the city's budget process, we
created the position of chief financial officer for the city.
We then opened a window for the Treasury Department to deal
with the District's cash and short-term budget problem. The
District's bond rating had slipped to junk status, and the GAO
had testified under oath that the city was insolvent.
It was never the intent of Congress, nor do I believe that
it ever should be our role, to micromanage this city. Our
purpose has been to create a team to rescue and revive the
Nation's Capital, and I think we have done that.
The first chief financial officer is, of course, now the
elected Mayor Tony Williams, who is now in the second year of
his administration. In his first testimony before this
subcommittee on March 19, 1996, then CFO Williams stated that
his top priority was to reestablish credibility by taking steps
to improve the District's financial management. This and much
more was done.
As Mayor, he has given himself goals, and he has achieved
many of them. The MCI arena and the new convention center
project would not have been possible without the fresh start
that we made together.
In 1997, the Revitalization Act relieved the city of many
of its fastest-growing budget items to put the city in a far
stronger position to perform basic municipal services, dealing
with the unfunded pension liability, closing Lorton, striking a
more equitable balance with Medicaid. All of this helped to
maintain our momentum toward economic recovery.
1999 was a banner year for the city and the subcommittee.
The memorandum of agreement between the Control Board and the
Mayor was ratified into legislation that originated right here.
In fact, it was the very first enactment of the 106th Congress
to be signed by the President, and as a result, substantial
authority was shifted from the Control Board back to the Mayor.
We thus gave Mayor Williams the tools to do the job.
Last year also saw passage of landmark legislation to
enable D.C. high school graduates to pay in-State rates at
public colleges in Virginia and Maryland.
What the District needs now more than anything else is more
taxpayers. I am gratified that the city's population finally
appears to be stabilizing. The real estate market is up-aided
by the incentives we helped to provide and the leadership that
the city's voters have provided. There is a great demand for
rental units. More regional residents are making leisure trips
into the city, a very healthy sign of economic activity.
The Control Board was created to work itself out of a job.
Within the foreseeable future, that's going to occur. And I
expect testimony today on what the process will be and what
progress needs to be made. But make no mistake, the District
government must not just play out the clock and then revert to
the bad old days of fiscal mismanagement. We will all do our
job to keep the city on the right track. They who keep the city
can never rest.
There are many serious ongoing concerns that demand our
oversight and attention. And the documented cases of abuses,
deaths, and missing records involving the mentally retarded is
outrageous. It's unacceptable. We are demanding answers, and we
are going to continue action, and the Mayor's rebuilding
efforts this week are welcome.
We also intend to monitor reform efforts involving the fire
department, pothole repairs, rat infestation, and management
practices. I also want to work with the city to get a better
handle on the receiverships to see if those departments are
better or worse off than they were before. And I want to make
sure that our coordination with the independent agencies, such
as water and sewer, is providing the region with the best
service at the lowest cost.
We will continue to work toward enhancing the tax base of
the city so that the economic climate is healthy and resources
are available for needed services.
So I thank Mayor Williams, Dr. Rivlin, and Council Chair
Cropp for being with us here today. I appreciate the job you
are doing. I look forward to your testimony as we proceed on
our bipartisan visions for the Nation's Capital.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas M. Davis follows:]
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Mr. Davis. I want to now yield to Delegate Norton, the
ranking member of this subcommittee and my partner here for the
last 5 years.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Many thanks
to Chairman Tom Davis for this hearing to start off the last
operating year of the financial authority. My appreciation as
well to Tom for his friendship and for the collegial and
bipartisan way in which he has always dealt with me and with
the city. It will be a sad day if the Republicans retain
control of the House when he leaves. Otherwise, I would be
pleased to have him as my ranking member.
My congratulations.
Mr. Davis. I take it that is a compliment.
Ms. Norton. My congratulations to Mayor Williams,
Chairwoman Cropp and the City Council, and Chairwoman Rivlin
and the Authority all who have cooperated to reconstruct a
government that increasingly we all can be proud of.
The Financial Authority statute automatically sunsets the
authority after 4 consecutive years of balanced budgets. As a
matter of fact, the District has far surpassed this goal. The
District not only achieved a balanced budget 2 years ahead of
the statutory goal, it has run healthy surpluses each year.
At the same time, the District government has made
substantial improvements in its management both before and
after the present administration came into office. Anyone who
lives in the District and has experienced its service delivery
has seen the improvement.
The Control Board has ratified this view of the District
government and deserves credit for the seamless transition to
full control by elected officials the Authority has fostered
while maintaining its oversight responsibilities consistent
with the statute. At the same time, all involved would be quick
to acknowledge that many important reforms and operational
improvements can be accomplished only after more time is
devoted to them and that significant problems can be found
alongside considerable progress.
The questions that Chairman Davis and I will raise in this
hearing fulfill our oversight responsibilities, but, consistent
with the way he and I have always operated, do not seek to
micromanage the District government. Based on their records,
city officials and the Control Board need no advice from
Congress on how to proceed to fully reform the operations of
the District government.
However, I would make one suggestion this morning, in light
of the Mayor's self-audit of the D.C. Mental Retardation and
Developmental Disabilities Agency, which has laid the predicate
for dismissals, new personnel, and other improvements the Mayor
has already initiated, Mayor Williams deserves praise for
conducting his own no-holds-barred objective audit. Its very
usefulness, however, suggests that had there been in place a
systematic plan for self-audits of every other agency, the
District might have caught this tragedy before it reached 116
deaths.
To one degree or another, every agency of the city
government needs a thoroughgoing audit that would assure
systematic improvements rather than reform by crisis. It is
time to draw up a plan and set a timetable to do an audit of
each agency in operation of the D.C. government.
I feel obligated to raise another early warning this
morning, but this one is not addressed to the elected officials
or the Control Board. Their best efforts do not assure the
stability of the District government or even its solvency over
the long term according to experts. The region's premier
analyst, Stephen Fuller of George Mason University, last week
projected that the District economy will peak in 2001 and will
decline every year thereafter for 4 consecutive years.
According to Dr. Fuller, ``You can't assume the District
economy stays healthy just because it's had a couple of good
years.'' He cites the growth in construction as responsible for
much of the increase in the District's economic output, and, of
course, construction does not produce permanent jobs.
I must add that the District went through good times in the
1980's because of a construction boom in downtown office space
and by the early 1990's was already showing signs of
insolvency.
Almost all the financial reform effort thus far has gone
into controlling expenditures, with the burden falling largely
on the District, plus an enormous boost from the President's
Revitalization Act. I am very gratified that Congress passed
and extended my $5,000 homebuyer credit and added important
D.C.-only tax credits for businesses we negotiated. But
valuable and productive as these credits have been, Congress
must do more to help the District enlarge its revenue base.
Either the city must get tens of thousands of new residents and
businesses in short order, or revenue must come from another
source.
Because the District has no State to fall back on, the only
available source is the Federal Government. It would be folly
to wait until 2001 or after to see how long the District can
hold on. The District cannot afford to wait. That is why I have
prepared a set of bills for introduction this year. Among them
will be an annual public safety Federal payment that was often
included in prior years in addition to the annual Federal
payment. This amount for police operations is necessary to
assure that the city does not go down paying costs such as the
half million dollars spent on the neo-Nazi demonstration and
thousands of others who come every year to petition the
Congress and the President, not the District government.
To cite another example, if the region insists that the
non-resident commuters use D.C. services free of charge, I am
obligated to seek a subsidy from the Federal Government to pay
the cost of the services used.
I also have new ideas about State functions that were not
taken by the President's Revitalization Act that continue to
burden the District, and I will detail these ideas soon. This
avenue in particular must be explored, considering that the
only reason the District of Columbia is able to report a
balanced budget and surpluses is the President's revitalization
plan, which removed pension liability and the costs of the
courts and Lorton prison and reduced Medicaid liability. These
and other similar measures must be explored.
If Congress has better ideas, let's begin to hear them now
before it is too late. The District is doing its part to
overhaul its finances and operation, but the Congress has yet
to move beyond its initial contribution of instituting a
Control Board, an indispensable vehicle to assure recovery
whenever a city becomes insolvent. However, Congress has not
streamlined its own cumbersome processes. As a result, Congress
adds substantial unnecessary costs to the District government
by requiring that its budget be micromanaged and often delayed
here and the District laws be held over. Yet Congress could
accomplish any change it desires at any time without cumbersome
preemptive measures instituted by standing congressional
committees.
District residents, Mayor Williams, Chairwoman Cropp and
their colleagues deserve better. They deserve to be met at
least halfway on the revenue needs of the Nation's Capital and
the costs of bureaucracy Congress adds to the city's finances
and operations. These problems will be far more difficult for
the Congress to face than the substantial help we have given to
the city thus far.
The Congress and the city have much to be proud of in what
has been jointly achieved. I have every reason to believe that
the Congress will want to build on this good work to assure the
permanent stability and continuing improvement of the Nation's
Capital.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Davis. Ms. Norton, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton
follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Now I would like to hear any statement the vice
chairman of our subcommittee, the gentlelady from Maryland,
would like to make.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
efforts to hold this important oversight hearing on major
issues affecting the District of Columbia during the year 2000.
And I look forward certainly to hearing the testimony of Mayor
Williams, Chairwoman Rivlin of the D.C. Control Board, and
Chairwoman Cropp of the District of Columbia City Council.
January is named for Janus. That was a god that had two
heads, one that could look back and one that could look ahead.
I think this is what this oversight hearing is about.
You have heard from the Chairman A litany--a chronology
actually of the accomplishments through the years, having been
added to by Congresswoman Norton.
Incidentally, as an aside, I think the Chairman has shown
tremendous leadership and commitment to the District of
Columbia, and the ranking member has also. We do care about
what happens to the District. It is our star in the center of
our entire region. So I want to say that I am pleased that, as
a result of the strength, expertise, and management
capabilities of the District leadership, such as the
distinguished panel we have before us, we have made some
tremendous strides.
I want to personally commend you, Mayor Williams, and your
team, and Councilwoman Cropp, on the team that demonstrated
that we didn't have a Y2K millennium bug that wasn't handled. I
remember the concerns that we had in terms of the District was
starting a little bit late, are they going to be in good shape.
I hope it has given an opportunity for an appraisal and an
assessment of what we have in terms of technology so we can
move ahead with other issues, and I would be very interested in
the role of long-term technology improvement plan for the
District of Columbia and what it will play in the future
prosperity of the District.
In addition to the testimony we are about to hear on
efforts to revitalize the Nation's Capital, I just want to
comment briefly on two other matters that I hope will be
formally addressed here. One is the issue that concerns me, and
it is status of the District's Mental Retardation and
Developmental Disabilities Agency. And I refer to the
Washington Post reports that there had not been any
investigation of the causes of 116 deaths in homes for the
mentally retarded, combined with admissions of document
shredding, and these are serious concerns.
And I am encouraged, Mayor Williams, that you are or have
appointed a coalition of private groups lead by the Lieutenant
Joseph P. Kennedy Institute, and I have great respect for that
institute, to temporarily manage the care of the city's
mentally retarded wards. I would, however, like an update of
the progress for the record here today.
Second issue is also related to a report in the Washington
Post. On January 15, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, the
Post quoted D.C. Taxicab Commissioner Sandra Seegars urging cab
drivers to pass up ``dangerous-looking'' people. When asked for
an example of a dangerous-looking person, Commissioner Seegars
stated, ``A young black guy, OK, with his hat on backward,
shirttail hanging down longer than his coat, baggy pants down
below his underwear, and unlaced tennis shoes.''
Is this an invitation to return to the days of 1993 when,
according to the Post, a Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
survey found that one-third of the taxi drivers in the District
routinely refused to stop for black customers? At a time when
we are facing rising concerns about racial profiling, I am
curious and interested in what impact a statement like this has
on our society.
I would also like to know how the District government will
balance the need to ensure the safety of taxicab drivers versus
the rights of citizens not to be discriminated against on the
basis of a racial profile.
That having been said, I again want to welcome you, and
thank you very much for appearing before us, and we look
forward to hearing your comment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mrs. Morella.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella
follows:]
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Mr. Davis. I am going to now call on our distinguished
panel of witnesses to testify, Mayor Anthony Williams, Dr.
Alice Rivlin, and the chair of the Control Board and City
Council, Chair Linda Cropp.
As you know, it's the policy of this committee that all
witnesses be sworn before they testify. If you just rise with
me and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Davis. Mayor Williams, why don't we start with you.
Then we will go to Dr. Rivlin. And then, Ms. Cropp, you will be
our cleanup.
STATEMENTS OF ANTHONY WILLIAMS, MAYOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA;
ALICE RIVLIN, CHAIR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FINANCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY AND MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY (D.C.
CONTROL BOARD); AND LINDA CROPP, CHAIR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
CITY COUNCIL
Mayor Williams. Chairman Davis, Congresswoman Norton,
Congresswoman Morella, thank you for having us here today and
giving us the opportunity to testify before you at this
oversight hearing. I want to begin by thanking you for your
continued support for our city and its efforts to show that
democracy can work and that we can achieve great autonomy and
self-determination.
I want to also make it a point of saying thank you to
Chairman Davis and the members of the committee, Congresswoman
Norton, Congresswoman Morella, for your support for the
District's college access bill. I really believe that this law,
over the long term, is going to have an unparalleled long-term
positive impact on our city, and all of you should be proud of
your work in that regard. We certainly recognize it here in the
city and are going to be working mightily to see that it is
implemented well and speedily.
A little more than a year ago, I was honored to be elected
Mayor. It has turned out to be, day by day, one of the most
rewarding experiences of my life. When I came to this job, I
came with a simple vision, and I maintain that vision, and that
is that our citizens in our city, America's flagship city,
deserve the very best. That means strong schools, safe streets,
clean communities, affordable housing, reliable transportation.
It means access to health care. It means vibrant economies
downtown and in our neighborhoods. Most of all, it means all of
us in our city putting our bodies and souls in motion,
empowering men, women, and children in all our communities to
work and solve our problems together.
Now, the first thing we had to do was to create a sense of
urgency in our government to set ambitious goals and deadlines
so that all of us, the Council, the Congress, Control Board,
and most importantly our citizens, can see our progress and
hold us accountable and begin to restore faith in our
government.
There were short-term action plans, some 28 of them. We
held ourselves accountable for achieving real results. While we
didn't get everything accomplished, and we missed a few self-
imposed deadlines, we accomplished a vast majority of our
action goals; 20 goals were completed, 5 are under way toward
completion, and only 3 were pretty much missed.
Now, although we have much to do, I am very, very proud of
what we have achieved in the short term. But while I believe
some of these goals are not unparalleled in their magnitude or
scope, they have done step by step, item by item a lot to
restore our citizens' faith and confidence in our government.
To give you just a few examples, streets and alleys still
have a lot of room for improvement, but they are noticeably
cleaner. During yesterday's snowstorm, I got a number of calls
not from people complaining, but calls from people saying they
were pleased to see policemen at the intersections. They
actually thought that we were doing, in some respects, a better
job with our roads than surrounding jurisdictions. I haven't
heard that a lot.
In August we had a gun buy-back program. We took more than
3,000 guns off the streets. Monday-morning quarterbacking can
say, well, were they the right guns, wrong guns. The fact of
the matter is we listened to one of our policemen. We were
proactive, worked with Chief Ramsey, worked with the Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms folks and got 3,000 guns off the streets.
We created a record 10,000 jobs for high school students
this summer. A little known fact, but we created the highest
number of jobs last summer than any administration in the
District's history. I am very, very proud of that.
Making progress with the phones. You can now call a single
number, 727-1000, to reach any agency in the District
government with your request. You get a case number. We track
that case number. We have set up a quality control team of
citizen volunteers and our own people who track our progress in
responding to mail, e-mail, and our phone calls. Again, there
is a lot of room for improvement, but we recognize our
problems, and we are managing against those problems.
Now, in the second year, I believe we are going to have to
operate on two parallel tracks. One is to continue to produce
these visible results that I have talked about while we are
making the structural changes that all of you have alluded to
in respect to, for example, MRDDA, or Retardation Development
Disabilities Agency.
Now, during the first year, we put a new management team in
place, and I am proud of the new structure we have put in place
with our deputy mayors, that will allow each deputy mayor to
approach a cluster of issues and work the interrelationship
between those issues. For example, there were a number of
different agencies that work on issues relating to children and
families. They're not single silos. All these issues work
together. We have one person to work those issues, one person
to work the public safety issues.
I am proud of that. I am proud of the fact that we are
implementing something called the Management Supervisory
Service. This is legislation from the Council a couple years
ago that we are aggressively implementing that is going to see
that midlevel managers will be held more accountable while at
the same time having a greater incentive to excel in their
jobs.
We are making a new commitment in training, millions of
dollars going to training, continuing education for our
workers, making a massive commitment now with our new
coordinator with the receiverships, Grace Lopes, to see that we
are working with the Federal judges to bring our receiverships
back under the fold of regular District government and regular
democratic government in the District.
Labor strategy is a big, big part of our upcoming agenda
next year, I would say a foundation for everything we are going
to do, because reforming management is only one-half of the
equation. I think it is very, very important that we work with
our labor unions to help improve service delivery in the
District, and not until we fundamentally change for the next
century our relationship with our employees that the District
will reach its goal that we all want to achieve.
During this past year we have begun working with labor
very, very intensively on a number of issues. We have made very
good our promise--on a promise made by this individual CFO, by
the Council, by the Control Board to give our workers a bonus
for their sacrifice during the financial crisis. And I am proud
to say we have carried through on that promise. We have created
good faith. But I think, as everybody would admit, now the hard
work begins.
Working with outside counsel, we are going to be
negotiating a labor agreement that I hope will achieve the
following: one, provide gainsharing opportunities for
employees, essentially profit-sharing for the public sector;
two, achieve real success on six pilot programs; and managed
competition, so that we can fairly compare what we have
achieved in managed competition, allowing our employees to
compete in the real world, comparing that with what we have
achieved with other devices, such as a labor-management
partnership that we are working very, very closely with our
unions to achieve. That is a matter of sitting down with our
employees, looking at a broken system and working with them to
find a solution and find ways to fix it.
Does this work? It absolutely works. I would argue that the
turnaround in our tax collection system--and we had Nat Gandhi
here, I believe, who is our deputy CFO. Nat and I worked
turning around the refund system, not by paying millions of
dollars to consultants, but by sitting down with our employees
and a new management team and working out a new solution. We
went from one of the worst in the country to sending refunds--
people forgot they were owed a refund by the time they got it--
to now we are providing refunds ahead of the IRS.
Now, Congresswoman Norton mentioned risk management. We
consider this to be a crucial part of our agenda for next year.
As a matter of fact, we have included a component of risk
management in every contract with our deputy mayors, with our
agency heads, and this is going to be part of our evaluation
system for the Management Supervisory Service as well.
Risk management is an absolutely essential component of
effective management. I am proposing that we establish an
Office of Risk Management as part of the fiscal year 2001
budget. And the responsibilities of this office would include,
one, addressing areas of risk involving employee disability
issues; addressing areas of risk involving insurance issues;
conducting reviews of the areas of greatest risk. This is based
on a program or issue focus, although I have no problem with
the Congresswoman's focus on agencies, focusing on our areas of
greatest risk, doing the audits, doing the reviews, and
instituting risk elimination, mitigation, avoidance efforts in
cooperation with the important agencies such as Office of the
Inspector General and Office of CFO; determining the
appropriate performance measures to work us out of these bad
situations; and, very importantly, establishing review
committees as an appropriate tool to review specific situations
and determine causation where it's appropriate.
I want to just give a brief overview of the financial
snapshot from my point of view.
I think it's easy to sit here and report that after 3
straight years of balanced budgets and a 4th year projected to
be balanced that the District is now entering into a new
century of unparalleled prosperity from a financial point of
view. But I think that we should be on guard; that while we
have gone farther and faster, and I still believe this in
similarly situated American cities, we still have a long way to
go.
So we've made progress on expenditure control. We've made
great progress in our fiscal relationship with the Federal
Government. We are beginning to inch along in our way to revive
our economy.
But I think there are still warning signs ahead. Members of
the committee alluded to them. I am very, very cognizant of
them. I think we approach each and every one of our budgets
with that in mind, one that there is still work to do in
expenditure control.
If you look at our agencies in comparison to benchmarks in
other jurisdictions, there are still economies to be realized,
I'll put it that way. If you look at it from cost per capita or
cost per unit of service, there are a number of different
dimensions from which you can look at this. There is a lot of
progress, a lot of progress to bring back our economy, and I
will be talking about that in a second.
I guess I would like to begin now and through this budget
cycle to just pour a little bit of rain on the parade so that
we keep a proper focus on the challenges that confront us. And
I will say frankly that I may have juiced the parade up a
little bit too much last year going into the budget with all--
you know, you have just been inaugurated, you are obviously
going to have a bright outlook. It may not have had a fully
balanced, fully nuanced view of our future going into this. And
I think we need that. I will just leave it like that.
Another key focus going into the next year, and I just want
to be very, very brief with this, are going to be children and
our neighborhoods. I say children and neighborhoods because
this is on the basis of our Citizen Summit, on the basis of
something we are calling Neighborhood Action, where we are
linking citizen input to our budget, linking citizen input to
our contracts with our vendors and our employees and our agency
managers.
Citizen input is a tool to bring together the faith
community, the business sector, the nonprofit sector to better
support our children, to better support our neighborhoods.
In the area of children, I am particularly proud of the
college access program, proud of our summer jobs program, proud
of our one-stop shop centers that we are having now for--
employment centers we are building in six of our neighborhoods
in cooperation with the private sector, the safe passages
legislation that we passed with our Council wherein we are
going to be tracking on a case-by-case basis the children in
the District and holding ourselves accountable for clear,
measurable results in terms of health, in terms of nutrition,
in terms of education.
In neighborhoods and economic development, I believe that
we have to spend an enormous amount of time and effort in
neighborhood development in the following areas: No. 1 is
recognizing that it's important to bring new investment to the
District. And in the future we need to find a way, and we are
beginning discussions now with the technology leaders in our
region, find a way to seize on strategic opportunities,
international trade and, very, very importantly, seize on
opportunities in the technology sector, bringing in new
technology investment to the District.
No. 2, very, very importantly, trying to catapult on,
Congresswoman Norton, your efforts with the home buyer tax
credit and others, to make an effort and to say to ourselves we
will as a District government set a goal of, maybe it's 50,000,
maybe it's 60, maybe it's 100,000 new residents over the next
10 years, and try to achieve that goal. Because, as Chairman
Rivlin and others have said, we have got a number of jobs in
the District. What we need are tax-paying residents in the
District, and that is going to be a key part of our economic
strategy.
I am proud to say that we are beginning to assemble a
first-rate team in economic development. And this team I think
is going to put this District on the forefront of other cities
over the coming years in housing development.
I also want to note something over the last year that I
think really does set a good precedent and two things that
really do herald I think the changes that are afoot and under
way.
No. 1, in ward 8, for example, where residents have been
working for more than 20 years to attract new development,
2,000 new units of housing are now under construction, 2,000
new units of housing. And this is, I think, without even
including the Hope 6 grant we got this year. This is more
housing right now in ward 8 than the rest of the city combined.
Another example is back in October when Hugh Panaro and the
owners of XM Satellite Radio passed up a chance to locate in
the suburbs, and they came and they made their home on New York
Avenue, bringing 300 jobs to Northeast and beginning a
renaissance of this important corridor in our city.
Finally, I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention on
natural resources and our effort to work with this Congress,
our Congresswoman and the Federal Government to bring back the
Anacostia River, to promote the redevelopment of brownfield
sites and to show that economic development and natural
resource management can go hand in hand.
And finally the issue of Y2K. I have to say a word about
the Y2K issue because I think it's one of our signal
achievements over the last year. You know, over the course of
the last year we testified to this subcommittee a number of
times. And on two of those occasions we focused exclusively, as
Congresswoman Morella was mentioning, on Y2K readiness. Simply
put, we made it.
The District, though, didn't make it alone. We certainly
want to recognize and need to thank members of this committee
as well as our Federal partners at OMB, Sally Katzen and John
Koskinen, the Treasury Department, HHS, the Clinton
administration in general for helping make the District Y2K
compliant.
As of now, the entire system's infrastructure of the
District continues to run without problems; 95 percent of the
District's systems are operational and all city-wide technology
infrastructures are operating normally, including and most
importantly our public safety operations.
The several-year effort most intensified over the last
couple of months produced the expected results, an entire city-
wide readiness and technological spring cleaning that resulted
in the complete upgrade of antiquated systems, producing higher
standards of greater efficiencies, which is a fancy way of
saying that we have used the occasion of Y2K, the crisis of
Y2K, to seize an opportunity.
And I want to thank the leadership of Suzanne Peck and
Norman Dong for using the occasion of Y2K to begin putting in
an infrastructure in this city that is going to allow this city
to, I think, really excel over the next 4 or 5 years in on-line
service to citizens, to excel with a webpage that we are going
to be launching in another couple of months or so that will be
second to none in its utility and functionality. So we really
are using this occasion and making progress.
I get a number of calls from our citizens, and I am sure
you do as well, complaining about all the road cuts and the
coordination of the road cuts. And if you look at our city,
sometimes I just want to jump out of the car, I'm just so
frustrated looking at these road cuts because it is
frustrating. That is the bad news.
The good news is that all these road cuts show us that this
city in another year or so is going to be one of the most
technologically connected cities in the world. We are like St.
Louis back in the 19th century with the confluence of the
Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. We are here at one of the
major hubs of technology. And I think the moral of this story
going into the next century is use the resources, the tools,
the partnerships, that we have to really seize this advantage.
So, as I say, the residents of our city need and they
deserve and they expect a government that works for everyone,
particularly our youngest and our most vulnerable citizens.
That is a commitment that I have made as our mayor. I believe
that we have made progress. There is much more to be done, but
I want to thank this committee, and particularly Chairman Davis
for his partnership, his support of our city and self-
government in our city, his support of this administration and
his belief that the District really can be America's flagship
city.
So I want to thank you, Chairman Davis, and thank members
of the committee.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Williams follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Dr. Rivlin, you have been with us, but even
before we started, you have been predicting this 5 years before
it happened and worked through to help.
Ms. Rivlin. Well, it happened, but now it is getting
better.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to join my colleagues in
expressing appreciation for the work of this committee. I think
the District is very fortunate to have the leadership of this
committee on both sides of the aisle and the District and its
surrounding jurisdictions represented so prominently and so
ably on this committee and its enormous strength for those of
us who work in the city and care about its future.
Your letter of invitation asking me to testify covered a
great many questions. I believe you want to hear most from me
about the Authority's transition plan for suspending its
activities, so I will get to that fairly quickly.
The Authority, as you remember, was created by act of
Congress in April 1995 at a time when the District was in
financial disaster. It was in terrible shape, and there was no
way of hiding that.
Now, almost 5 years later, the District is in much better
financial shape. In fact, the recovery, as you all know, has
been quite dramatic. We have had two balanced budgets behind
us. We are about to have a third. We are into year 4 where we
also confidently expect that we will have a surplus.
The District's bills are getting paid. Its taxes are being
collected. Debt obligations once again sell for market rates.
And from a financial standpoint, there has been much progress.
But it is important to recognize that the District needs to
expand its economic foundation. Its tax base is still too
narrow. Vigorous and sustained efforts are needed to attract
and to keep new residents and add and to enhance business
opportunities. Otherwise, we are in trouble going forward.
The District also has considerable deferred maintenance and
a history of inadequate infrastructure investment. Its decayed
and outmoded infrastructure will take substantial resources to
correct. The District is focusing on modernizing its
infrastructure, using that word loosely, to require--broadly
that is, to cover streets, roads, and computers and all sorts
of things. And I urge the Congress to assist the city's elected
leadership with the necessary resources.
Over the past year, the Mayor has assembled a strong team
of experienced professionals to run major agencies of the
District, and this team has worked hard to put together the
Mayor's strategic priority action plans which are very
impressive indeed and which we expect will improve the
performance of the District visibly over the next year or so.
Indeed, visible, measurable improvements have already occurred
in the delivery of many District services, and more will be
evident in the coming months.
Despite the improvements, however, we are all conscious
that serious deficiencies remain in the delivery of many public
services in the District. Tragically, as you have noted, some
of the egregious problems of neglect and mismanagement affect
some of the District's most vulnerable citizens.
We have also made considerable investments in technology,
but problems remain with managing technology, including
financial information systems. We are particularly concerned
that systems modernization urgently needs to be completed,
employees hired and trained to maintain and use these systems.
Reform will not come easily or quickly to a government that
has been neglected and mismanaged for many years. It will take
sustained and concentrated effort to effect permanent change.
But we can all be proud that the process is under way and
moving forward.
Mr. Chairman, I turn now to my main topic, the time by
which the Authority must suspend its activities. How do we
become a city without the Authority?
In order for the Authority to suspend its activities, the
Financial Authority Act requires that the District government
must end the fiscal year with a balanced budget for 4
consecutive years as verified by the comprehensive annual
financial report. The District must have access to private
credit markets at reasonable interest rates; and any obligation
incurred by the Authority from the issuance of securities, and
in fact there have been none, must be certified as discharged;
and all short-term requisitions by the District government from
the Treasury must also have been repaid.
The various statutory requirements read together almost
certainly take the Authority through the end of fiscal year
2001. If, as we expect, the District achieves a balanced budget
in fiscal year 2000, it will have satisfied the statutory
requirements to terminate the control period. However, the
District would still be in a control year at that time since
the fiscal year 2001 is a year for which a financial planning
budget approved by the Authority will be in effect.
So, as we interpret the statute, the Authority would
continue its normal functions through September 2001, with the
exception of approving the budget for fiscal year 2002, which
the Authority was merely required under the statute to review
and report on to the Mayor, the Council, the President, and the
Congress.
Over the year and a half between now and the time that we
hope to suspend activities, the Authority will be working hard
with the Mayor, the Council and the leadership of the city to
ensure that we believe the District government is in good shape
and strong fiscal health.
We will be working on three major fronts: strengthening the
decisionmaking processes of the city, strengthening management
of D.C. agencies and the effectiveness of service, and growing
the city and its tax base.
We also plan to make recommendations to the Federal and
District governments for improvements in the governance
structure of the District to fulfill one of the purposes of the
Financial Authority Act.
On strengthening decisionmaking processes, good decisions
must be based on accurate, timely information which is
available and well understood by the participants in the
decisionmaking process. While considerable progress has been
made with strong leadership from both the chief technology
officer and the chief financial officer in bringing D.C.'s
information systems at least up to the standards of the late
20th century, if not quite into the 21st, much remains to be
done.
The well-known difficulties with implementing the new
payroll system called CAPPS, the source of the infuriating
teacher payment errors; and the implementation problems of the
new financial management system called SOAR, which have
complicated the closing of the fiscal year 1999 audit,
illustrate the need for sustained attention to improving the
District's ability to produce timely, accurate information for
decisionmakers. The Authority will be working hard with the CFO
and the CTO to facilitate the upgrading of D.C. information
systems.
Good decisions also flow from decision processes in which
participants know their roles and work well together to get the
decision made, even when they disagree strongly about what the
outcome should be.
Last year's budget process left much to be desired, even
though it resulted in a consensus budget strongly supported by
the Mayor, the Council, and the Authority. Inadequate
preparation and unresolved differences between the Mayor and
the Council forced the Authority to play a major role in
brokering a final compromise. This year we hope that earlier
agreement on fundamental assumptions underlying the budget and
better communication between the Mayor and the Council will
enable the consensus budget process to flow more smoothly with
less active intervention from the Authority.
A major process issue that must be resolved soon is how the
District of Columbia public school system is to be governed.
The Authority is prepared to turn over governance of the school
system but must be assured that there is a new governance
system in place that will serve the best interests of the city
and its children.
In view of the need to resolve the issue of school
governance and to establish a workable system, which may
require one or more referenda, the Authority is prepared to be
responsive to a request from local elected officials to delay
the return of school governance until the end of this calendar
year.
On strengthening management and the effectiveness of
services, the Authority will be working closely with the Mayor
and the Council and the Inspector General and others to
strengthen management and accountability for producing
effective services responsive to citizen needs and concerns,
including developing performance benchmarks for services.
We believe the city's work force must be heavily involved
through labor management partnerships and other arrangements in
improving the efficiency of operations, outreach to the public,
and a sense of pride in services delivered.
We are particularly concerned that important services, for
example, mental health and child welfare, remain in
receivership and accountable to judges, not local officials and
citizens.
We will be working hard with the Mayor and the Council to
help the agencies in receivership to achieve service standards
acceptable to the courts and established a firm basis for
seeking their return to local control.
Finally, growing the city. Although the financial future of
the city looks far brighter than it did 5 years ago, its
continued fiscal health, as others have stressed, is by no
means assured. The city has a narrow tax base and much of its
current prosperity could fade if the national and regional
economic boom were to lose its momentum. The city has lost a
third of its population in the past 20 years and has suffered
job loss with the downsizing of both the Federal and the D.C.
governments.
The continued fiscal health of the District of Columbia
depends on growing its job base and its resident population,
especially the latter. The Authority will be working with the
elected officials of the District and its business, labor and
nonprofit leadership to help create a vibrant process of
economic development.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, much progress has been made in
Washington. However, much hard work remains. The Authority
looks forward to closing down on September 30, 2001. Meanwhile,
we will be cooperating with the Mayor and the Council to be
sure that the city is functioning well and no longer needs us.
Thank you.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Dr. Rivlin.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rivlin follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Ms. Cropp.
Ms. Cropp. Good morning, Chairman Davis, Congresswomen
Norton and Morella. I am pleased to appear before you today
with my colleagues, Mayor Anthony Williams and Alice Rivlin.
Let me join with them in thanking the committee so very much
for the work that you have done on behalf of the citizens of
the District of Columbia. We think that we are better for it.
As we begin the 21st century, I hope that you share the
feeling, from what I am hearing, of the real pride and optimism
about Washington, DC, which I have sensed among our residents
and our businesses. As I had said before when we first saw it
coming, there is a new feeling of our citizens holding their
heads up and their shoulders back.
We recognize that there are still lingering problems with
the functioning of the District of Columbia government, many of
which have been experienced by other cities, some of which are
of our own making, and some of which the responsibility lies
elsewhere. But I believe that we are well on the right track to
addressing most of these problems.
I also hope, Mr. Chairman, that you would agree that the
locally elected officials of the District are more than willing
and able to do our part, as we expect our Federal and regional
partners are willing and able to do their part, in taking the
actions necessary to continue our progress and ensure the long-
term financial health of this city.
1999 was a very good year for the District of Columbia. A
new reform-minded Council and the Mayor have worked hard
together, sometimes with constructive tension, often with
Congress and the Financial Authority, and always with our
residents and businesses, to continue the ongoing
revitalization of our city. Taxes have been cut, housing and
economic development has been growing, and major legislative
reforms have been or are about to be enacted that will improve
the functioning of our local government.
Last year was the first year in more than a decade in which
the number of jobs grew in our city instead of declined, and
the decade-long loss of population has finally begun to
stabilize. We still want and need many more residents and jobs
in Washington, DC, in order to expand our revenue base and
ensure our economic viability for the future. That is why we
are redoubling our efforts to make the city a more attractive
place to live, to work, and visit.
Neighborhood stabilization and revitalization remains our
collective No. 1 priority, which of course cannot be achieved
without making real improvements first and foremost in
education, in our public schools, along with continuing
improvements in public works and public safety throughout the
city.
The Council, as you know, initiated a recent dialog that is
ongoing with the Mayor and with our citizenry to focus upon how
we can improve the governance of our public school system so
that we can achieve more accountability and best serve the
interests of the children of the District of Columbia. That
effort, led by council member Kevin Chavous, chair of the
education committee, introduced legislation that would look at
the governance of our school system. And it has created an
awful lot of dialog, I think healthy, in this city to that end.
Let me take this opportunity to note just a few of the many
other major legislative initiatives by the Council during the
past year: the Tax Parity Act, which is designed to make the
District more competitive with our surrounding jurisdictions in
terms of retaining and attracting more residents and
businesses; the legislation establishing an independent housing
authority to replace the receivership that has been in place
for public housing; tax increment financing for major retail
and housing development, such as we are experiencing right now
at Gallery Place, which is a mechanism that can be and will be
duplicated to help spur revitalization of our neighborhoods
throughout the city; the legislation providing the chief of the
Metropolitan Police Department with additional tools to retain
and attract experienced police officers to fight crime; the
emergency legislation that was enacted to address in part the
fatal neglect of the mentally retarded persons in group homes;
and the legislation that it is about to be considered by the
Council which comprehensively reforms the system by which the
city manages and disposes of its own property.
I would like to provide to the committee a record of a copy
of the legislative agenda for Council period 13. It is the
first time that the Council has put together an agenda that we
expect to accomplish over a 2-year period, a set of goals that
we hope to initiate.
This is the strategic planning document that the Council
developed again for the first time last year. The agenda
identifies 33 Council goals for this legislative period. And
we, in fact, will be meeting next week in another strategic
planning session to assess our own performance in accomplishing
these goals and update and revise our priorities where
appropriate and working together with the Mayor and Financial
Authority to initiate many of these reforms.
A little more than 2 years ago, the opening of the MCI
Center at Gallery Place as a home to professional basketball
and hockey helped spark the downtown development boom that we
now see evidenced by the many construction cranes in the sky.
Last year, Chinese New Year, sitting in the middle of H
Street, as you looked up, you saw seven cranes in the sky of
the District of Columbia. The new convention center is under
construction on schedule north of Mount Vernon Square. The
Carnegie Library is being renovated as the new City Museum of
Washington, DC. The Business Improvement Districts authorized
by the Council are helping the city clean up and provide
additional services in commercial areas. In fact, for the first
time in a long time, we even saw Woodie's windows during the
holiday season based on the efforts of the BIDs.
New apartments, condominiums, hotels, restaurants, movie
theaters, grocery stores, and other retail arts and
entertainment venues are being created or planned, not only
downtown but in our neighborhoods as well.
The District government, as you know, has experienced 3
consecutive years of budget surpluses, thanks to the sacrifices
by our workers, our citizens, and thanks to management reforms,
to a strong national and regional economy, and thanks to the
revitalization legislation that you enacted to relieve the city
of several costly State-like functions that no other city has
to pay, plus Federal reassumption of the unfunded pension
liability that the Federal Government had created and
transferred to the city.
We also appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your sponsorship of the
legislation enacted by Congress last year with our
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to provide the District
high school graduates with the ability to attend public
universities in Maryland and Virginia at in-state tuition
rates, plus the new financial assistance to the University of
the District of Columbia and to students attending private
colleges in the District. This will be very helpful to us, and
we need to assure that our students are academically qualified
for these higher educational opportunities, which I hope we
will be able to expand at both the local and Federal levels.
We expect fiscal year 2000 to end with the budget surplus
for the District government as well, which would trigger the
beginning of the end of the Financial Authority pursuant to the
legislation which you were instrumental in enacting 5 years
ago.
At this time next year, when the audit for fiscal year 2000
is completed, we expect to have worked hard to achieve the
statutory requirements of four consecutive balanced budget--
surplus budgets. We also hope that 2000 will be the year that
includes historic steps toward full realization of American
democracy for residents of the District of Columbia and that we
are finally successful in our long-standing struggle to gain
voting representation in the U.S. Congress.
We ask that you give serious consideration to remedying the
denial of this fundamental right to our citizens and that you,
therefore, take a new and positive look at Congresswoman's
Norton's proposal in this regard, particularly her legislation
to provide greater legislative autonomy for the D.C. Council
and also to allow the District's locally raised revenues and
expenditures to be excluded from the annual national politics
of the congressional appropriations process.
In closing, let me reiterate some of what I stated to you
almost 1 year ago today. Prior to and since the enactment of
the Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act,
this city has gone through some rocky times, some challenging
times, and some very creative times.
We have recently entered a new era which all of us here at
this table recognize is a transitional time. Implicit in the
word ``transition'' is the concept of rebuilding bridges, of
moving toward the day when governance of this city is solely by
elected officials who are accountable to the citizens.
A lot of things still need to be done, but the first and
major step of recovering from our financial crisis has been
accomplished. Implementation of significant reforms to service
delivery improvement are ongoing. And we, the elected council
and elected mayor, collectively have the vision, commitment,
and democratic mandate from our citizens to work together with
other stakeholders toward a renewed and revitalized District of
Columbia.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the
Congress. I am, of course, available to answer any questions
you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cropp follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Thank you. We are going to go right to
questions. I am going to start the questioning with our vice
chairman, Mrs. Morella. But before I do that, I want to ask one
question.
Ms. Cropp, you focused a lot on the economic development,
and I think everyone did. Ultimately, that is what is going to
be critical for the city, because I think we can get the
service delivery and we are moving in the right direction in
all of these areas, but if the city does not establish an
independent tax base over the long term to sustain it, we have
huge problems. There is tremendous opportunity in those areas,
whether it is down at the Navy Yard or whether it is at Gallery
Place downtown. We are starting to see things moving.
When I get to my round of questions, I want to focus a
little bit on some of those strategies, because it is a very
competitive market to attract capital in the major cities, and
you are competing against a suburban market that is very
competitive at this point. But there is a niche there. So we
will get into that.
Let me start the questioning if I can with my colleague
from Maryland, Mrs. Morella. Let me say that I think we will do
10 minutes, and I will go from you to Ms. Norton and then to
myself.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the three of you for being very honest in
your appraisal as you look back and yet applauding yourselves
for what has happened with the progress that has been made in
the District of Columbia and then looking ahead at what more
needs to be done.
A question for the Mayor and anyone else who may want to
comment on it is actually related to what I and Congresswoman
Norton both referred to in our opening statements, and that is
the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Agency.
I know you took very, very strong action this past week in
that regard, essentially firing top personnel and temporarily
privatizing the operation. And this resulted no doubt from the
deplorable and disgraceful conditions which were allowed to
exist, including the documented cases of abuse, deaths, missing
records.
I wanted to ask you, where do we go from here? How could
this agency have been allowed to function the way it has been?
And with regard to that part of the questioning, I guess I
would also ask Councilwoman Cropp about what happened to
Council oversight of this agency.
Mayor Williams. Well, let me talk about how we got there
and then I'll talk about what we are doing to get out of where
we are. I think it is an important question.
When I came into this job, I always believed the key to our
success was laying a good foundation; and just as a major part
of building a bridge is the foundation, a major part of
rebuilding this government is going to be in its foundation.
And that is ensuring that we have integrity in our government,
that we've got management control in our government, that we
manage risk well in our government.
These can sound like arcane technical terms, but they
really are, as you're saying, connected to and are synonymous
with people not getting good service, renting buildings that
are unoccupied, people dying. So we have asked each and every
one of our agencies, through the contracts that we are laying
out with each and every one of our agency heads and the
evaluation standards for middle managers, to take risk
management as one of their top priorities; and we began doing
this some months ago, even before this report came to light.
I think a second part of this was alluded to by
Congresswoman Norton, and I talked to our inspector general
about this, and that is a need to do a systematic auditing,
performance auditing, throughout the government so that we have
an independent third party evaluating where we are against
where we have established a certain standard.
In respect to--and we haven't had this in the past to a
level that we should and, frankly, some of the management
reform work that was done in DHS didn't pick this up--and I
think a fair question to ask is why wasn't it, because there
was a thorough review of the management ``review'' of DHS and
did not pick up these problems. And you have got to ask, did
you get what you paid for in that connection?
In terms of what we are doing, though, now that we know
where we are, what we have done is the following: Recognized
that a total rebuild of this system has to take place, but it's
not going to be successful unless all the different parties are
consulted, all the different parties are briefed, all the
different parties feel that they are participating in this,
including our labor community, because I think bottom-up action
is necessary.
I was criticized early because within days I had not fired
two or three people. I think it is easy to satisfy yourself and
figure, well, I fired two or three top people, you have solved
the problem. You really haven't. And if you haven't done it
right, you actually have undermined morale on our management
team. I think what you have to do is to look broadly and
systematically at the work that needs to be done. And we have
done that.
We have done a 30-day report, found these systematic
problems on our only self-assessment, and we have done the
following. No. 1, bring in a consortium of providers headed up
under the Joseph P. Kennedy Institute to manage, short term,
this system, the operations of this system, and to see that the
services are getting to our disabled citizens. That is No. 1.
No. 2, work with a task force that will work with us in
designing a completely new system, new managers. Employees will
now compete for jobs in this new system. If they have not
succeeded in making it into this new system, we are going to
help them with outplacement, severance assistance, we hope
relocation within the District government. We are going to be
very, very methodical and thoughtful and humane in that. But we
really need to rebuild this system.
And also key to this is seeing that, as we rebuild this new
system, we not only have new contracts in place, but we have a
system of monitoring these contracts. And we are looking to
this task force, which includes everyone from HHS to people who
are in the community in terms of masters and providers to help
us see that that system design works.
So that is a somewhat long, extensive answer. But I think a
bottom-up solution was called for, and it was worth the time
and worth the method to do it.
Mrs. Morella. We would be interested in your keeping us
posted in the progress that is made.
Concilwoman Cropp, would you like to comment on that?
Ms. Cropp. I would. There is no doubt that we need better
oversight of that whole area. The Council recently, in addition
to what the Mayor has done, has passed emergency legislation
that would require autopsies on all boards of the city and also
requires investigation of every injury of death in mentally
retarded and group homes. We join with the Mayor in applauding
him with this action that he has taken recently.
I think it also shows what has happened, not as an excuse,
but what had happened when that particular area was totally
decimated recently, somewhat of funding, that there was a huge,
huge cut of more than $100 million over a very short period of
time. It is not as an excuse, but perhaps when you see large
cuts happening to any particular area, maybe the onus is on us
to more vigorously do oversight to see what impact that type of
cut will have from it.
So throughout that process, we have learned that we need to
probably take a better approach and a different approach in it.
Mrs. Morella. So we have learned the hard way?
Ms. Cropp. Unfortunately, yes.
Mrs. Morella. And the way to go.
I and this committee are very interested in not only
watching what happens but being willing to help you. If you
need any help, let us know.
Mayor Williams, I would like to pick up again on an issue
that I raised in my opening statement, and that is the tendency
for racial profiling with the taxis. Does that mean that if you
are not white and you are black you have to have a three-piece
suit on and look like you do with a bow tie, and look so good,
in order to hail a cab or not be rejected?
I have actually heard this from other people, too, not only
the Washington Post, but I have heard it from people and I know
that they have a tough time getting a cab.
Mayor Williams. Racial profiling is inexcusable, and I can
actually say in truth that I have been in cities with my bow
tie and have not been able to find a cab. So--I'm a student of
Harvard and Yale and I can't get a cab, so everybody is exposed
to racial profiling. And that is why I find the remarks of the
Commissioner there, I think she has done a good job otherwise,
but I think these remarks are inexcusable and unfortunate and
they do not reflect the policy of this administration.
I think there are problems here with our cab industry that
are going to take some real leadership. We are not going to
address the problems in our cab industry based on trying to
ferret out, or fathom through ESP or otherwise, some kind of
emerging bubbling consensus, because there really isn't. They
are so divided on everything. The cab industry is divided. Our
cabbies are divided on medallions, permitting, licensing,
separators in the car.
After one incident, I told our cabbies we need separators
in the car. This is being done in every city and it protects
you. And one cabbie said, well, this is going to interfere with
the ambiance of the cab.
So I think we are going to need, all of us as elected
officials, to step up and just say, this is how it is going to
be done, because I think trying to wait for consensus in the
cabbie community is not going to happen. And we are going to
need locator devices. I think we need separator devices. I
think again we need to get at the deep-seated issues with our
cabbies, work with them on the economics of our cab industry so
that they're getting the capital, they're getting the
assistance to build a first-rate cab fleet, which we don't
have.
Mrs. Morella. Will you be doing that and the Council also
doing that?
Ms. Cropp. Yes, we will be working with the Mayor to take a
holistic and comprehensive approach to the taxicab industry. Of
course, that type of profiling cannot be tolerated nor
encouraged. But quite frankly, if you talk to citizens of the
District of Columbia, you could have a three-piece suit on and
anything else, and if you are going to certain sections of the
city, certain cab drivers won't even take you there and even
anywhere. So we need to discourage that totally.
But while we are looking at that and must not tolerate
that, I think the other side of the coin is that we need to
look at approaches that we can help protect the safety of our
cab drivers. And perhaps it is some of the things that the
Mayor has said, looking at whether or not they have partitions
from the front or back. There are other ways that we need to
look at it, and it is a serious concern for taxicab drivers.
But while doing that, we must ensure that all citizens can get
into a cab, have the ability to go wherever they need to go.
Mrs. Morella. I thank you.
Sorry, Dr. Rivlin, I did not have a chance to ask you
whether or not the Mayor had consulted with you on the
performance plan.
Ms. Rivlin. The Mayor does a lot of consulting with us.
Mr. Davis. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mayor Williams, there were reports earlier this week of a
possible strike by non-teaching school personnel. Could you
give us a status report on that matter?
Ms. Rivlin. Well, there's active negotiation going on at
the moment. I don't know that I could bring you up to date on
the exact status.
Ms. Norton. But you do not expect a strike anytime soon?
Mayor Williams. We are hoping there won't be a strike. And
I was referring to Alice because I know that Connie Newman, who
is taking the lead on education issues at the board along with
Arlene Ackerman, has been actively working with the unions to
try to resolve this.
Ms. Norton. That matter raises larger questions that I know
have been at the forefront of your thinking and goals, Mayor
Williams, and that is to get a hold of labor relations, a key,
of course, to assuring long-term stability in the city and
reform of the government itself.
You were left, of course, with a system that was very
piecemeal, not your own creation, but something that frankly
comes out of years of the way labor relations have developed,
kind of, on their own potion in the District of Columbia, so
that you have some who had negotiated for bonuses, others who
had not.
I wonder if you could give us any idea of how you intend to
draw together, into one cohesive system, labor relations in the
city and how you intend to keep this piecemeal approach, which
is broken out in the school system, from repeating itself in
other parts, from other personnel in the government.
Mayor Williams. Well, I think we need a global labor
strategy. And for the agencies under my purview, we have--we
have retained on a pro bono basis a lead negotiator; and we are
working hard with the labor community to see that we have a
first-rate labor liaison and office of negotiation that can
work these issues, chief among them over time, I think, trying
to reduce the number of bargaining units, which makes life hard
in terms of negotiation and makes life hard in everything from
paying payroll and everything else; and trying to see whether
we can do that, trying to work with the schools and our
independent agencies and their labor situations.
Independent agencies, we meet regularly with the boards and
commissions I think for the first time in a long time to try to
bring our boards and commissions more in line with what we are
doing in the regular executive branch of government.
So, for example, we bring together the boards and
commissions in the economic area, boards and commissions in the
children and families area and some other issues--we try to get
coordination on is labor.
Ms. Norton. I really don't understand this difference
between boards and commissions and the way in which you are
talking in any other part of the government.
Mayor Williams. Well, you've got WASA for example. They
have got labor issues over at WASA. I don't have direct
control.
Ms. Norton. But most commissions, even though they are
independent, would not, in fact, be beyond your purview in this
regard, would they?
The one thing I really do not understand, and maybe
legislation is required, we keep hearing from mayors, well, you
know, these are independent agencies. You take a position with
respect to the School Board, OK, this really ought to be under
one person. I mean, is there something about boards and
commissions that makes labor relations or other parts of the
District of Columbia not hold together or hang together, and
does it require congressional legislation or legislation from
the Council itself?
What is the difference between--I can understand WASA,
which also has some input from the region, but most of these
so-called independent agencies are under--somehow or the other
under the D.C. government--and I do not understand the
difference between them or your control and the Council's
control over them and control over so-called mayoral agencies.
And if there is a difference that goes to better management in
the D.C. government, then I think that should be brought out
and it should be dealt with either by the Council or, if it is
a charter change, by us.
Mayor Williams. To answer the question the best way I can,
I don't have direct operational control over D.C. General
Hospital or----
Ms. Norton. How about the lottery?
Mayor Williams. Well, the lottery, I don't either because
the lottery right now is under the independent CFO. So it is a
matter of persuasion. It is a matter of getting the right
people appointed to these boards like UDC and D.C. General or
WASA. But I don't have direct operational control.
Ms. Norton. Have you looked to see whether that is the way
other cities do it or whether that is the best operation? I
just do not know. I do not know how they got set up that way. I
do not know if it is the best way to do it. I do not know if it
is different from other cities.
All I know is that if the Congress is told, I'm sorry, this
is an independent agency, that invites the Congress to get into
it. So I would like to know how these independent agencies
ought to relate to the central government so that we can all
work together to do something about it.
Ms. Rivlin. Well, you are raising a very good issue. And
there are really several issues here. One is the independent
agency. And we just talked about one. We talked about the
school system and that the school system does not report to the
Mayor. At the moment, it reports ultimately to the Authority,
which is why the Mayor turned to me for the answer on the
question of exactly what is going on in these labor
negotiations. So it is a complicated situation.
Even within the agencies that report to the Mayor, there
are an enormous number of bargaining units, and we have all
talked about working together to sort of formulate a strategy
with the unions as to how to reduce the number of bargaining
units to get a common labor policy across the city as a whole.
Ms. Norton. I would just ask the Control Board, the
Council, and the Mayor to look at the independent agencies to
see whether to effect the kind of streamlined government and
financially efficient government you are after before changes
of any kind are made.
Dr. Rivlin, I recall that last year you had a different
view on the tax cuts as originally proposed by the Council. If
I recall, you and the Mayor both had different views based on
your long-term judgment of the D.C. Economy. I would like to
ask you if you think that there should be tax cuts yet again
this year within the District?
Ms. Rivlin. We are just starting into the process of
looking at the revenue forecast and the spending forecast for
the next year and going forward.
Personally, I think the District is in a situation in which
further cutting of taxes, although I can understand why one
might want to, is a risky thing to do in view of the needs for
improving services and the fact that we can't be sure that the
revenue flow into the District, which has been very
satisfyingly high in the last couple of years, will continue,
especially if we have a downturn or even a leveling out of the
rapid growth of the regional economy.
The District treasury has benefited from the same thing the
Federal treasury has. Everybody is earning a lot of money and
capital gains are going up, and that is very beneficial to all
governments that tax income and capital gains. But it may not
continue forever, which is why this important focus on economic
development and growing the population must happen.
And I personally would be nervous about any further tax
cuts, in fact--tax restructuring is another question--but net
cuts until we get on a firmer financial basis going forward.
Ms. Norton. Until it is assured that more revenue coming
into the District.
Ms. Rivlin. Yeah, until we can form the tax base.
Mr. Davis. Dr. Rivlin, as I understand your answer, you are
against revenue cuts, it is not the tax cuts per se. If a tax
cut could produce more revenue, you would not have any
aversion, but it is the revenue cuts you are concerned with.
Ms. Rivlin. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. But there are
often revenue--those who favor tax cuts often have very
optimistic views about----
Mr. Davis. I do not want to get into scoring. But, for
example, the first-time homebuyer's tax cut did not come out of
city revenue. That is a tax cut that has probably done more to
build the tax base.
Ms. Rivlin. Oh, yes. That is terrific. My son just bought a
house.
Mr. Davis. I hear Michael Jordan is buying one, too. I am
sure with that tax benefit he can use that, too.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know the chairman
will work with me as I try to get more tax cuts of that kind
that do not cost the District anything.
Chairwoman Cropp, I want to give you an early warning
because I expect Senator Durbin is going to be back. With my
$5,000 first-time homebuyer's tax cut, an independent study was
done that showed the nexus between that tax cut. Of course,
that tax cut is the kind of cut that you would expect the nexus
to be rather clear: Here is $5,000, come live in the District.
And of course, that levels the playing field when it is very
difficult otherwise to do so.
There was a lot of skepticism as to whether or not a small
income tax cut would have that effect, not because of the
District, but because historically that has been very difficult
to show.
Now, Senator Durbin, who is a strong proponent of home
rule, was so disturbed at the notion that the first thing that
the Council would do was to cut taxes--he got close to--to his
credit he did not do it--he got close to trying to intervene in
the District, itself. That is just how risky he thought it
would be. Instead, what he did was to pull back and indicate
that the District should, and I am sure he will raise it during
the appropriation period--during the next period, track and be
able to show what kinds of results it is beginning to get from
the Tax Parity Act.
I say this to you, because it is going to happen, and ask
whether or not any attempt is being made to see whether some
independent source can look at the tax cuts to see what effect
they had, and I would like to know what was the average amount
of that tax cut for the average D.C. resident.
Ms. Cropp. Well, let me just remind you that with the Tax
Parity Act, the initial set of cuts had nothing to do with the
income tax. In fact, we won't know that and won't even have an
idea of that for several years out. That wouldn't happen until
year 3 of the plan.
Ms. Norton. So when is the first year that residents will
see any reduction in their own taxes paid to the D.C.
government from whatever source?
Ms. Cropp. I believe the first year would be the year 2001;
2001 is the first year.
Ms. Norton. Will it be an income tax?
Ms. Cropp. Yes, that's correct.
Ms. Norton. What will be the average amount of that income
tax reduction?
Ms. Cropp. I would submit this to you: The year 2003, it
comes down to 9.3--it comes down to 9 percent from 9.975
percent in the year 2002. So for the income tax piece it will
not see it actually until the year 2003.
We have realized, very clearly, that we could not make a
tax cut, income tax cut, in the first year, and in fact, that
was part of the compromise in order for us to do it in out-
years to give us an opportunity for stabilization. And also the
tax cut is built upon a certain amount of revenues being there.
If, in fact, the dollars are not there, there is a safety valve
in that.
There is a very clear safety valve. The Council, in
initiating tax cuts, we did not want to do anything that would
destabilize the financial picture of the District of Columbia
at all. We have worked very hard to stabilize it. So the tax
cut is very small, a very small tax cut for our citizens. While
we were doing tax cuts for businesses, it was strongly felt
that the individual citizen and resident also needed to see
something. We needed to have an opportunity to see what we
could do to expand our population, and we felt that would
happen. But if, in fact, through a formula we do not have the
dollars there, then the tax cut would not occur.
We were talking about an awful lot of dollars, surpluses,
in the District government; and this tax cut was based on that.
The initial tax cuts were for businesses and efforts to try to
make sure that we encourage economic growth on that side. But
we officially believe that we need to also encourage economic
growth on the side of our residents.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
The dilemma is inherent in how you have expressed your
answer. They had to be small, and so the question becomes, can
a small tax cut have the effect that was trumpeted, namely, of
bringing people into the District. It has got to be small
because of the revenue problems of the District; and yet, the
smaller it is the less the trumpeted effect that somehow
people, on the basis of a small amount of money, are going to
decide to move to the District rather than someplace else.
All I ask, because I have no judgment and think that is a
matter of data--and I appreciate that the Council did, in fact,
try to reflect the revenue problems of the District. But I do
say that whatever you can say when you testify before the
Senate Appropriations Committee should bear in mind that you
need to have in place something that objectively tracks the
effect here, because Senator Durbin spent the major part--this
is a man who helped us enormously on tuition access, but spent
the major part of the rest of the time voting against our
appropriation in subcommittee because of this tax cut. And this
is a Democrat who very strongly supports us on home rule.
The best thing you could have is the kind of evidence that
indicates that no harm is done, even if somehow the tax cut has
not performed miracles. I do not think anybody expected that.
Ms. Cropp. But keep in mind that there is no way to track
that for this year's budget.
Ms. Norton. All I say is this: The man said ``track it.''
If you cannot track it yet, come in with an indication of why
you cannot, when you are going to begin and what your
methodology will be, or I will have problems up here dealing
with a Democrat in the House. And I do not need the kind of
problems I had with Senator Durbin last time.
Ms. Cropp. Fair enough.
Mr. Davis. We will do another round. Let me start with the
Mayor and then ask for comments.
We talked before about the tax base and about how it is
coming back. And you talked about the 2,000 additional homes.
We are opening facilities that were being closed before. It is
moving in the right direction--there is no question about it--
that needs to continue. The regional growth has been
phenomenal. The city is starting to share in that.
Can you share with us a little bit of your vision? And I
know that when a company makes a decision to open a branch
office or headquarters somewhere they are making a very
competitive decision about what it is going to cost them, how
efficient they can be. You understand this and we have had some
conversations.
Give me a little bit of your vision if you can and so forth
where you think you are going, what we need to do better, how
we can help you from a congressional point of view. And then I
would like to hear from Dr. Rivlin and Chairman Cropp.
Mayor Williams. Just in general, I think we create the
background conditions in terms of tax incentives for our
businesses, and we have a range of employee tax incentives,
capital tax incentives, including in areas of our city no
Federal capital gains with certain provisions, improving public
safety in these capital communities where crime has gone down
now for the last 2 or 3 months in these areas where we have
concentrated our activity. All these things, better public
service, creating the background conditions.
A question of marketing. I am the first Mayor to have gone
to Las Vegas to, it was actually to a convention, it was to the
International Convention of Shopping Centers. And I was out
there talking with all the shopping centers from around the
country about Anacostia. And we are now in negotiations with
some major retailers about locating in the District. We are
very proud of that.
I recognize that and I have talked to the folks here on the
panel and with you, as well, that this boom isn't going to last
forever and we have to make the transition from a retail
tourist service economy to try to do a better job with health
technology and technology per se. And we have begun a series of
discussions with the major industry leaders in technology in
our region about directly and personally what it will take to
create conditions here, whether we will make some investments.
So, for example, if AOL is going to be locating a data
center, I think they are going to be putting a data center in
Manassas, we want them to be thinking about the District. If
you are making a major location decision, we want to ask you,
what does it take to locate here in the District of Columbia?
We have made a major effort to work with folks such as
Fannie Mae to move the District ahead in housing, putting
together the financing tools, putting together the technical
assistance, so that over the next couple of years, I believe we
can be one of the top cities in the country in housing. And why
I think that is important is because I think it is important
for us to talk about not only attracting retail investment or
business investment, but how do we attract residents. And that
gets me to my final point.
I think a big part of our neighborhood development efforts
has to be reform in our schools so that we can target the
reform efforts in our schools in a way that parallels and
aligns and complements what we are doing in our neighborhoods.
We have a HOPE VI grant from the Federal Government, working
with the private sector, Federal and city council, with Douglas
and Stanton dwellings. And all of us, and Eleanor, were there
and we announced this major grant, some $50 million.
We have got to make sure that the schools in that area are
also on a reform track so that we are leveraging effort. And
right now that is problematic. Linda talked about the
governance discussion that is going on. If we don't get the
governance question resolved and really focus that effort down
in the neighborhood schools, we really are in the long run
impairing the ability of this city to really attract the
residents that we need.
Because I think are you seeing cities around the country
right now that are attracting single couples, that are
attracting gay couples, that are attracting couples that are
retired, they have raised their kids and they now want to come
to the city. We need to attract now families with children who
have confidence in our schools.
Ms. Rivlin. I agree with all of that very strongly. I think
it takes a very coordinated effort from marketing to taxes to
improving services, especially schools.
Let me mention just one other thing that the Mayor has
focused on but did not mention, namely regulatory reform and
improving, which the Control Board took the lead on. In working
with the Council, we have had considerable simplification and
streamlining of regulations in the District, and I think that
we can go further. But the other is the permitting and issuing
of various kinds of permits that you need to do something.
The District had a very bad reputation. Business people
would say, well, all right, even if I decide to locate here,
it's such a terrible hassle. I can't build anything. I can't
get permission to do this or that.
I think we've turned that around in quite a dramatic way
and the District may end up being thought of as a really good
place to start your business from that point of view.
Mr. Davis. Thank you.
Chairman Cropp, you brought this up as a big part of your
testimony.
Ms. Cropp. Well, it really is a major component of the
District's continued health. I think one thing that is
happening that is quite different is the Mayor's new team that
he has put together to help this, and that is with the deputy
mayor for Economic Development and Planning.
For the first time in a long time, the District really has
a planning director that can look at not only what is happening
downtown but also look at what is happening in our
neighborhood. There is a combined focus from the Mayor and the
Council on neighborhood revitalization.
It was really heartening for the Council to hear from the
deputy mayor for Economic Development that we are going to look
at really trying to bring businesses into the community, we are
going to look, we are going to have a team together to be aware
businesses are talking about leaving the District, to see how
we can encourage them to stay there.
One other thing that is happening in the sector outside of
the District and that I think is equally as important and that
is from the CDCs and the nonprofit housing group. They have
recently merged and that merger I think really will be
important for neighborhood development to bring in small
businesses in the neighborhoods and where you also will see the
nonprofit housing group building, restoring housing to
encourage our neighborhoods to come in.
So an awful lot is going in that direction and I think it
is positive, and I agree with what the Mayor and Alice Rivlin
have said.
Mr. Davis. I think from the city's perspective it is
obvious why you would want this development to come in--tax
base, employment opportunities, what it does for the charities,
all of those things. But from a suburban perspective, it is
important as well.
Let me just tell you why. First of all, if you argue
against the commuter tax, we ought to be doing everything we
can to make sure you have your own tax base. That takes those
kind of issues away when we reach in together.
Second, we talk about our traffic problems in the suburbs.
We have an infrastructure to get people into the city and we
have people living in the suburbs who, frankly, if they live in
the city where we have mass transit available, it makes the
whole system run a lot more efficiently instead of the kind of
sprawl that we have gotten.
For a lot of reasons, there is an infrastructure in the
city that will support more people that is not existing in the
suburbs and frankly strains our resources and adds to the
traffic.
And finally, you cannot have a society where you have half
very wealthy and affluent and thriving and a core there that is
not going anywhere. It just does not work that way.
I think the thing that has made me the proudest of sitting
here for 5 years and watching the city is not the fact that it
is fiscally better off and they are delivering services, but
the fact that you are starting to see a tax base come up. This
is not a zero sum game. This is not you are taking it from the
suburbs and moving it to the city. The whole region benefits
when these things happen.
I think a lot of the rhetoric that we heard originally,
where you would have one jurisdiction against another, has now
dissipated, and I think everyone has come to the understanding
that a strong city makes for a stronger regional climate, a
suburban climate. And frankly, having our kids come down here,
now you do not worry about it on a Saturday night if they are
coming down to the MCI Center. It is the way it was when I was
in high school. And there is a long way to go, but I think
we're going in the right direction. And you have kind of
articulated the vision where you want to go, and we want to
make sure you have the tools to go about it and continue to do
that.
Ms. Cropp. One thing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to put on
the record--and the Mayor speaks of this frequently and he may
be able to help me out here--is the housing market in ward 8.
They are developing more housing in the ward 8 community than
in any other area.
Mr. Davis. He noted that in his testimony, 2,000 houses I
think he talked about.
Ms. Cropp. And that is a big statement. Wards 7 and 8, if
you look at the past two decades, that's where you have seen
our largest exodus of our population. And we do see that
turnaround as a big statement.
Mr. Davis. It is also important that we make these
developments work. The worst thing that would happen is to
build these developments and have them not continue to sell and
the resales and everything else. So we all have an interest in
making sure that these developments work, and that will attract
more capital.
Mayor Williams. I was going to say because, Mr. Chairman,
the housing market now in the District is so, so strong, we are
trying to seize this opportunity over the next couple of years
while it is strong to really make an impact on housing.
We committed one of our short-term goals to take 200 units
of abandoned housing and turn them into homeownership. We had a
housing lottery. I think we had 6,000 people waiting to get a
shot at owning one of these homes. That is how strong the
market is. We need to take advantage of it.
Mr. Davis. I have got a whole series of more questions, but
my 10 minutes are up and I am now going to recognize Ms. Norton
for some more questioning.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to ask a question about a provision that we,
the chairman and I, enacted or passed, actually, as a makeshift
measure before the Control Board had an opportunity to get a
hold of contracts; and that is the million dollar review by the
Council.
We recognize that that is perhaps unique in American
government. And the only reason that we included that, it may
have passed at the time of the Control Board statute, was
because there had been such overspending, there was no Control
Board, we kind of looked for somebody else to look at
contracts.
Now, I note that we have had to exclude the Water and Sewer
Authority, and should have. It was the right thing to do. We
excluded the Convention Center because we wanted to make sure
that that happened. After the highway money came through, money
for which I worked very hard, working with the Council, we got
it kind of passed through, whereby you did not have to go
through all of the paces.
Far too late, the city recognized, in my judgment because
it only put more pressure on the technology people in Y2K, that
they should, in fact, not go through these paces here. I want
just to say to you, we did not do it because we thought it was
anything but a makeshift way to get at contract and procurement
problems while you were getting your act together.
My inclination, since it was we who did it and it does not
raise a home rule issue, since no government has it, since it
adds to the bureaucracy, since we have other ways in place even
after the Control Board leaves to, in fact, assure competitive
contracting--my inclination would be to say it ought to go. I
would like your own opinion on whether or not this unique way
to control contracts is necessary or whether it may indeed at
another time perhaps with a different council have the exact
opposite effect, and that is to say ``politicize contracts.''
Ms. Cropp. Well, I think that we need to probably review
that. It's a good issue that you bring up. We needed to be able
to move quickly with regard to Y2K. At this point I do think
that we need to slow down that pace and look at it more
carefully.
The whole contracting process, though, we need to make sure
that we do streamline it in a way that it does not prevent us
from being able to enact on different things outside of those
areas that you talked about. And that was part of what we did
in the Appropriations Act last year, we looked at the
contracting piece. And I think we need to continue to review
it.
We may not need to exempt an awful lot of agencies or
different programs from it, but we do need to continue to be
vigilant as to an approach that we can speed it. The Mayor and
the Council, we have initiated a new process where we do
summaries at the Council. That has made us move quicker. We
need to just review it and continue to watch and see if there
are other areas in which we can make it speedy, but at the same
time with due diligence with regard to the contracting process.
Ms. Norton. Do you think this process is necessary to
control contracts at procurement in the District of Columbia,
each of you?
Ms. Rivlin. Well, the current process doesn't involve the
Control Board. We were reviewing contracts over a million of
the District. We have turned that power back when we did the
memorandum of understanding to the Mayor.
Mayor Williams. I think that for contracts under a million
dollars the best role for the Council in terms of oversight is
to take a performance management approach and spend a lot of
time asking as programs are being developed, and then
retrospectively as they are being executed, kind of on a
diagnostic basis, are we getting what we paid for and spending
oversight there as opposed to on a transactional basis, where I
think the temptation arises and where sometimes you see, not
just with our council but with legislatures in general,
excepting present company I guess, a legislature would have a
tendency to become a contracts appeals board. And you have seen
in our city just contracts endlessly delayed while people
jockey the different players against one another.
So what I would like to see is a process where we could
work with a relevant committee chair, design a program, work
with that committee chair where we can design a contract over
$1 million and then have the kind of summary review that Linda
is talking about, but then understand that we are going to have
some intensive scrutiny and review, and I welcome that from the
Council, in terms of what did we get in terms of performance
from the contract?
Because, you know, we spend an enormous amount of time
talking about the performance of our employees. We need to
spend a lot of time talking about the performance of our
contractors.
Ms. Norton. I could not agree more on that score. I must
say that that has been one of the huge failings of the D.C.
government. You got a contract, you kept getting the contract,
it did not matter how you did on the contract. This is where
the oversight is, of course, particularly needed; and I know
that is where the Council and the Mayor are beginning to do it.
I would like finally to ask you a question about the
procurement system, period. I know that the Control Board and
the city have been working to improve procurement ever since
the Control Board was set up. I have to tell you, the
impression is still left with me that our procurement system is
far more cumbersome than others in the region, that it takes
far longer to order almost everything that it does for other
systems in the region. Am I wrong?
I get that impression on an ad hoc basis when specific
things come to my attention. But it is not my impression that
as improved as the procurement system is, if you laid it
alongside the other systems in the region, that it would be as
efficient as those systems.
I am told, we have to wait because we are waiting for the
time period for this contract to come in or for the RPF to come
in. I still hear those kinds of things. I am simply trying to
get to the bottom of what it would take to get a procurement
system like Virginia's, you know, 45 days or whatever it is,
out on the street, or you need to order some books and you get
them within 30 days. Or maybe I am wrong, since I am, in fact,
reacting to ad hoc information.
Mayor Williams. Well, we were talking about, to speak of
economic development and to quote Michael Jordan, who is
actually in and of himself a major economic development coup
for the city, I was listening to him talking about the team,
and I really could imagine one of us talking about agency
management because he was talking about accountability; and
people need to like, you know, perform for the dollar that they
are getting and this and that. He was saying that, you know, it
took the Chicago Bulls several years to get up to speed. And I
use that by way of analogy because I think Elliott Branch, whom
we brought in as our new procurement director, was head of
procurement for the entire U.S. Navy, so he has dealt with
very, very sophisticated and complicated procurements and he
understands, working with Steve Kilman in performance
contracting.
Two things I think are very becoming about Elliott's
approach and I think are going to redound to our benefit and
cut down procurement times. One is, Elliott understands
intuitively that we need to spend much more time internally on
our multimillion dollar contracts and much less time on the
contracts under $25,000. And he is pursuing and is launching a
small purchase card so that we are spending our time and effort
where we need to spend our time and effort, because right now
we are spending an enormous amount of time and effort on small
purchases and we are letting by the major traffic in terms of
dollar volumes. That is completely backward.
Second, you know, as long as you have been here, we have
all heard people talking about improving the procurement work
force and really haven't seen a lot to show for it. Elliott
came in, he briefed the accounts and the Control Board on his
program for setting standards, tough standards, and providing
the requisite training for his people to give them a chance to
meet those standards in the procurement work force in the
District government. We haven't had that before and I think
that is going to bring the efficiencies and the economies that
you've talked about, because when it comes to licensing and
permitting, Alice is right, we've made a lot of progress in the
District government with business, but if it still takes too
long to get a contract that is related to sliding that business
in the District, we're behind the eight ball.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Rivlin, did you have anything you wanted to
say, since I know the Control Board has spent a lot of time on
the procurement system, in particular?
Ms. Rivlin. We have. And I would second what the Mayor
said. I have a lot of confidence in Elliott Branch. And he is
working very hard to improve the system, and I think we are
going to see it fairly soon.
Mr. Davis. Thank you. Let me just ask a few questions.
We are all aware of the horrible tragedy that resulted with
the death of 2-year-old Brianna Blackman. I think that was
widely covered. I understand the District's foster care program
is under receivership and that the courts have jurisdiction.
But I think there has to be closer coordination between the
receiver and the District government.
The toddler, of course, had been in a foster care home and
was killed by a blow to the head at the home of her biological
mother during a 2-week return to the home by order of a local
judge. There was no court hearing. The judge apparently never
saw the report from Child and Family Services recommending the
child not be sent back to the mother. Obviously, something went
terribly wrong in this case. This is something that we do not
ever want to see repeated in this city.
What are we doing about it? And overall, is the District's
foster care program better off now than it was before the
receivership?
Let me start with the Mayor, and I will let you talk and
then get any comments from anyone else on this.
Mayor Williams. I would say that one of the biggest
problems is, I cannot really confidently or reliably tell you
whether we are better off or not, because we don't really have
any system of measuring, of knowing whether we are better off
or not. And I think it's really incumbent on us as our first
order of business with Grace Lewis who we brought in. Grace has
got experience working with a receivership up in Baltimore,
working with a receivership here. She was got actual hands-on
experience working as a master in receivership situations to
work with the mental health receivership, work with the child
and family services receivership, to put us on a 2-year track
to get out of those receiverships. And the way we want to do
that is to try to sit down with the masters, sit down with the
judge and agree on a set of standards that we have got to meet
and we have got to fulfill and we've got to satisfy, and
resource in order to get out of that arrangement. And I think
setting that standard will allow us to say what we are actually
accomplishing.
I actually find it horrifying that I really can't tell
you--I really can't tell you whether we are better off or not.
I know that we have got overspending. And I thought the whole
purpose of this exercise was to reduce the amount of
overspending. I know we have parents who are criticizing us
because they are not getting paid, because the adults in all
these different jurisdictions cannot bring things together.
I think the answer is trying to, with this liaison,
agreeing on some set of standards with a judge. I think--as
CFO, I often thought that maybe the answer was some kind of
legislation, because the Congress put in place a Control Board
to manage better the District government while at the same time
you had a number of judges acting on a statutory basis in a
receivership situation trying to do the same thing; and
everybody is working at cross-purposes.
Mr. Davis. Maybe we ought to let the GAO come in here and
play referee and give us some data, and maybe we will go in a
different direction. This case, I know broke everybody's heart
who read about it. And this kind of thing should never happen.
I appreciate your candor in terms of how you deal with it. And
maybe we need somebody to come in and do an analysis that does
not have an ax to grind in this. And GAO would fit the bill and
tell us what still is not working well and how it is working.
Mayor Williams. I think that would be useful actually.
Ms. Rivlin. At this stage, I am not sure we need another
outside player. Because I think the Mayor has taken the steps
to bring everybody together.
Judges do not want to run these agencies, really. And the
receiver in this particular case has been struggling. But I
don't think it's clear that the services are much better than
they were.
But I think we now have a mechanism for bringing everybody
together and trying to get some standards and some measurable
outcomes and then going to the judge and saying, look, this is
what the city is able to do and it may be time to end the
receivership.
Mr. Davis. I do not know. I mean, just when you see a case
like this, this should not happen anywhere. It should not
happen anywhere. And this is not the first time that we have
been on report here that things have not been going so well.
We will look at it. We are not trying to add another
element, but we would like somebody to come in and honestly
call balls and strikes, and that is what the GAO does on these
issues.
Ms. Rivlin. The GAO would come in and tell you things
aren't going well, I'm pretty sure. Whether they are the right
people to bring the parties together to do that----
Mr. Davis. We may end up working with you to do that at the
end of it. But if we could just get more ammunition to change
the status quo that right now we are kind of mired in how you
get out of this. But I appreciate your comments.
Ms. Cropp. I agree with a lot of what Dr. Rivlin is saying.
But I would like to just add, part of the biggest problem was
that the District was not provided the appropriate level of
service that was needed. That is how we got into it with the
receivership.
What the Mayor suggested is, we need to find out what the
standards are and then demonstrate our capacity to do it. I
think it would be much better for us to get out from under the
receivership for things to come under the Mayor.
Part of the other problem that the District had was, for
the past decade or two, the District was overly ambitious in
what it said it could do. We were the only city, for example,
that required that our social workers had to have a master's
degree. Therefore, we did not have enough social workers; and
that helped to lead us into that problem. We got to a point
where we said that foster care homes, that a home could not
have more than four or five children in one home. Well, if a
foster parent had demonstrated that they had the capacity and
the ability to do that, why wouldn't we allow that to happen
and keep families, keep siblings together?
So we need to have the ability to be able to change some of
those things that the District had agreed to earlier, to
establish what the standards are, and to come out from under
the receivership.
I think that the existing receiver is struggling, and I'm
not certain if we would not be much better now under the
leadership of our mayor, and with the Council's oversight, that
we could not establish standards and live up to them.
Mr. Davis. Let me turn to the fire department if I can for
a minute, and then I'm going to get into education. Mayor
Williams, are you searching for a permanent fire chief or at
this point are you satisfied with the interim chief?
Mayor Williams. We have a committee under us, Steve Harlan,
with the support and participation of Bob Watkins from the
Financial Authority doing a national search. We've involved
leaders from throughout our city, all the different interests.
We are looking for a chief. But all of us recognize that Chief
Tippett has really stepped up to the plate and is really
beginning to turn the organization around, and all of us
support him in that effort. I'll give you just one example of
where I'm really impressed with what the chief has done. That
is, shortly after coming into office, I don't know how he did
it, he looked in a phone book or he went to the Internet, he
just looked and he found some used fire ladder trucks and he
brought them here to the District. We've been talking over and
over and over again about while you have people criticizing the
department about the lack of equipment, where we have the
money, No. 1, you've got to make the order. No. 2, even while
you're waiting for this order to get through the system, what
can you do as a stopgap measure to ensure that we're filling
the hole with some temporary equipment. And I wasn't getting
any answer. Chief Tippett got in, a week later I got--he
invited me over to the training center and I looked and there
were two ladder trucks.
Ms. Norton. Did he borrow them or did he have to go through
the procurement system?
Mr. Davis. Some questions are probably better off not
asked. He got them there, right? They were there.
Mayor Williams. He showed the initiative and he showed the
leadership. I think there's a precedent for that throughout the
government. We fell behind in leaf collection. I think one of
the things we could have done in retrospect is instead of
falling behind on leaf collection because our equipment had
broken down, go up to one of the higher latitudes where they
had already finished collecting their leaves and made some deal
to get some leaf collection equipment from there to fill the
hole. That's good thinking. I think he's shown that.
Mr. Davis. You could still do a national search and arrive
and keep him on is the point. You're not abandoning the search.
It sounds like he could probably stand up to----
Mayor Williams. We've got to do due diligence but the
search committee has looked at the work he's doing. We're very
impressed with his work, I'll say that.
Mr. Davis. The average response time for 911 fire
department calls, is it improving or not? Do you have a sense
of that?
Mayor Williams. The good thing about 911 is we do have data
that people can judge us on. Right now it's not good.
Mr. Davis. It hadn't been good for years though.
Mayor Williams. That's right. What we pledged to do was put
in new software. We've done that. We're working with Bell
Atlantic on their part of the system that needs some work. I
support strongly Chief Tippett's commitment to on a pilot basis
do cross training of our firefighters who are the first
responders. I think that's more cost effective than building up
a huge parallel ambulance fleet. This is being done all over
the country. We need to do it here. I think we're going to see
those times start to reduce as all those things are in place.
Mr. Davis. And you talked about the procurement system,
just getting things. One of the things I know that we hear
about is the gear and breathing apparatus available to the
firefighters who are out there in some very tough situations.
Mayor Williams. You've got a serious procurement system
problem if someone hasn't even ordered the equipment. It's one
thing to order the equipment and have barriers in the system,
but in some cases no one had made an order.
Mr. Davis. Who do you blame then, right? Exactly. My 10
minutes are up. I'll yield back to Ms. Norton. Then I just have
a few questions.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Mayor, continuing on my revenue concern for
the District, one clear revenue source has been the lottery.
Yet there was some sense that it was up and then it was down. I
would like to know where lottery receipts are now relative to
prior years. Has the good economy meant that the lottery
receipts are continuing to go up? Is it a strong source, as
strong a source or a stronger source than it has been for
revenue?
Mayor Williams. Yes, they were up in 1998 under the
leadership of the great former CFO--no. Congresswoman Norton,
the lottery receipts, we showed them up in 1998. They're going
to be down in 1999, and it really isn't a matter of management.
It really is a matter that we had some big jackpots built up
and they draw in a huge volume. We haven't had the big jackpots
in 1999. I really think that we as a city ought to as a
conscious effort decide that we're going to keep our lottery
receipts somewhere between 60 to 75 and as long as they're
between 65 to 75, be happy and not mount too aggressive a
marketing effort. I really believe that. Because I think a lot
of times people are playing the lottery and that's not the
best. I don't want to be patronizing or condescending, but it's
not the best use of income.
Ms. Norton. I couldn't agree with you more indeed, unless
you sell them to Maryland and Virginia. I could not agree with
you more. This is a poor people's tax, no matter how you look
at it.
Mayor Williams. I agree with you.
Ms. Norton. There's nothing we can do about it. They've
swept the country. But it means the better educated, the more
income you have, the less you are involved in that way of
raising revenue. It's too bad. Frank Wolf would very much agree
with me on this.
Mr. Davis. I was going to ask him how his trip to Las Vegas
was when he was doing these other things. It seems to have been
a good experience for him.
Ms. Norton. Of course, given the state of our revenues, we
can't afford to let any revenue source we have stabilize now,
and that has to be kept in mind as well.
Mr. Mayor, I don't believe any of you mentioned the
University of the District of Columbia in your testimony.
That's understandable considering what this hearing is about. I
want to thank the chairman that as we worked together on the
D.C. College Access Act, I asked him to work with me to include
the University of the District of Columbia in it to make it a
historically black college and university and indeed it was the
only historically black college and university that had not
been funded and he was entirely supportive of that, stuck with
us entirely through that, and considering the hard times that
the university has gone through, it was and will continue to be
an important revenue source. As delighted as we are about our
work on college access, we don't fool ourselves. We know that
the majority of the students from this city are still going
to--far more students are going to go--to the University of the
District of Columbia than are going to, in fact, go elsewhere,
and that has a lot to do with our public schools, it has a lot
to do with the demographics of our population. I would like to
know, especially given the way in which you hope to better
integrate the public schools with the D.C. government, what
your plans are for better integration of the University of the
District of Columbia with the D.C. government and improving our
own state university.
Mayor Williams. I think first and foremost, Congresswoman,
in my talks with a number of different people with experience
in higher education, including Donna Shalala, and we all know
of her remarkable history in education, it really does start
with a first rate board. It frankly took me too long, but I
think we've come up with just that kind of board. I'll give you
an example. We have Reg Gilliam, who's got substantial
marketing experience with Hill & Knowlton; George Wiley,
accounting experience; Ambassador Mark Palmer, development
experience; Peggy Cooper Catritz's experience with our
educational system right here in the District, Reverend Willie
Wilson's experience and community leadership with the faith
community; and very, very importantly and profoundly, Charles
Ogletree. He's a professor at Harvard Law School but what
people don't know, extensive experience as the alumni
development, he ran the development campaign for Stanford
University so he's got extensive experience now in development.
And I think that's a combination of the package that we need
for UDC. They're ready, and I've been meeting with the board.
They're ready to step in with a short-term action plan for the
university that talks about modernization, that talks about
infrastructure, that talks about all the tools that we know the
university needs. But, as you suggest, begin talking about the
relationships in its continuing education mission, in its
undergraduate mission, the relationship between UDC and our
public schools. I was delighted to hear the board members talk
about--first of all, I was delighted to see that the board
members were very, very diligent and somewhat skeptical, and
that's a good thing, in the reading materials they had gotten
for their first meeting, asking a lot of different questions
about the education environment, if you will, the market, how
UDC was going to situate itself in a reform agenda for the D.C.
schools, and those are all good things to hear. So it's too
early to say exactly what their strategy is, but I know they
would love to talk to you and work with the other elected
officials as they begin their strategy for improvement. We've
got some great people on that board now.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, I have just one more question.
Mr. Mayor, I was intrigued to hear your testimony concerning
risk management and your plans there and I think that's much to
your credit. I want to try to understand how it would operate
by just plotting it against some examples. Would the risk
management notion you have in place have discovered, for
example, that 116 people had already died or would it be more
current? Would it get to operational and management
dysfunction? Would it get to an evaluation of managers so you
don't have to fire a manager as, in fact, things come out? I
can understand its great benefit across agencies. I'm wondering
if it also would deal with these very serious, what I cannot
believe are not very serious, unless some magic has happened,
problems in the way in which each agency functions as an
operational matter.
Mayor Williams. I told our agency heads in a Cabinet
meeting a month or so ago that the bar had now been raised.
They all knew that we had some tough standards but I don't
believe in moving the goal post and I believe that people need
fair notice, so I told my managers, ``I am now officially
bringing the bar to a higher level. Each of you have got to go
into your agencies, go into your agencies and tell me on the
basis of your own self-assessment where there are areas of
risk. If you've gone and you've done the assessment and on the
basis of your assessment we find that there are some problems,
you're not going to be held responsible. But if you haven't
done an adequate assessment or even with an adequate assessment
there has been some management failure and you're responsible,
you've got to be held accountable. You've got to be held
accountable.'' I can give you examples. These examples range
from the trivial, cell phones, car pools. In Philadelphia, the
only way they figured out the number of cars they had is they
just said--when Ed DeSeve was in Philadelphia, they said, OK,
everybody with a car, you've got to come down to memorial
stadium and leave the keys. That's how they did the car audit.
The only way they figured out how many cars they had. TVs,
furniture, it's junk like that which is important because it
goes to confidence in the government and waste, to police
mismanaging informants, not managing investigation of deaths
and contracts. All that has to be covered, so that we can look
at a corrective plan of action. So as we get this information,
we've got to take a range of actions from, one, literally
rebuilding the agency because it can't really be fixed all the
way to on the other extreme in a much more proactive range, and
we're doing this. As we create this management supervisory
service, we're saying that, yes, this management supervisory
service is going to be at will formally and nominally but
really the managers are going to be performing according to
objective criteria that are laid out in accordance with these
performance standards, one of them being risk management. So in
other words, if you're a middle manager, are you managing your
resources, your assets, your phones, your cars? Are you
managing your risk in terms of exposure and liability? You're
going to be held accountable for doing that. So it's not going
to be whether I have a headache or not or what I feel, it's
going to be an objective standard, and risk management is a big
part of it.
Ms. Norton. Am I to understand that agencies now, you said
you spoke to your Cabinet, particularly after the deaths
involving mentally retarded people, realizing that they are to
do their own self-audit of the kind, for example, that was so
well done after on which you are now acting for the mental
disabilities agency, do they now know that they're supposed to
be looking at that ahead of time?
Mayor Williams. Right, in cooperation with the CFO and the
IG, creating this Office of Risk Management, creating a process
for ourselves going in and doing the assessments and taking
ourselves the corrective action. I've talked to Linda about
this, I've talked to Alice about this, particularly Alice,
avoiding what I saw myself in the Federal Government where if
you're not careful you just end up with a lot--you're
generating a lot of paper but nothing is really happening. We
want to avoid a simple paper exercise and make sure that
there's a connection between the assessment of a problem and
some real corrective measures.
Ms. Norton. Dr. Rivlin.
Ms. Rivlin. I thoroughly agree with what the Mayor is
saying, but just one more point. I think the Mayor certainly
wouldn't disagree with this. Special care has to go into
programs where children or the mentally retarded or people who
are especially vulnerable where their lives and well-being are
at stake. And that's different from managing property or
managing other things, all of which we want to do well, too,
but there's a special risk there. I think we all need to be
conscious of that.
Ms. Cropp. Hand in hand with that, if I may, is the
Council's oversight in all of this. One of the objectives that
we have been trying to do is to strengthen our oversight, not
to be critical but to be a partner in trying to make things
function better. Before we have our budget hearings, for
example, we are about to go into a set of hearings where we
deal specifically with performance measures and we will look at
exactly what the Mayor and his agency heads have said that they
were going to do, to look at their benchmarks, to his credit,
that he has come up with against other cities and to see where
we stand with them. So it's really one of those partnership
things. While the executive branch looks at the challenge
before the agencies, the Council must also do its part in the
oversight of it.
Ms. Norton. The notion that was in the paper that somebody
opined that what we had created was a miniature Forest Haven.
We closed Forest Haven but say that then we create little
Forest Haven around town. That was spine tingling to hear. I
appreciate that Kathy Patterson, to show you the way in which I
think confidence is being restored, indicated that she thought
that the Council should have uncovered some of this. When you
hear that kind of thing, you know that it's going to get better
because what we haven't heard are a set of apologetics about
it. The chairman has asked me to ask you, Mayor Williams, while
he was out of the room, he had to go out of the room for a
minute, do you plan to replenish the tobacco settlement fund?
If so when and how?
Mayor Williams. The answer is of course yes and that will
be happening in 30 to 60 days, as soon as the reprogramming has
taken effect. I also support actually--I'm just not speaking--
I'm not speaking for the city here but as a Mayor I personally
support separating the tobacco fund more fully as a trust
instrument so that we can be assured that into the future this
tobacco fund has been segregated properly from the regular
operations activities of the District's budget operations.
Ms. Norton. One more question in that regard. Congress did
something very important last time. It is a permanent change
which allows you for the first time I think since home rule not
to be treated like a Federal agency with respect to any
surplus, but set aside some of it and then to do as other
jurisdictions do, to be able to allocate the rest of it. Is
there a way in which--is there a modus operandi you have for
carrying out that change that we made in the charter? For
example, there is probably going to be a surplus this year. How
will the District treat that surplus? Will you have to set
aside all of it because of the amount that the Congress said
should be set aside or will there be some allocation so that
some of it can be used?
Mayor Williams. I think there is a reserve and there was
also I guess a provision of 50 percent of unforecasted revenue.
Together I think what we do with it is going to be on the basis
of criteria that are established between the Council, the Mayor
and the Financial Authority executed by the CFO.
Ms. Norton. In the budget process coming up?
Mayor Williams. No, this will be looking back on the
reserve that will come into effect--I guess--well, we've done
the audit, we'll know where we sit. We've got criteria. We'll
have to make sure that expenditures are in accordance with the
criteria and are one-time-only expenditures.
Ms. Norton. One-time-only expenditures would be chosen this
year, though.
Mayor Williams. This will be this year, in year 2000.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Davis. Thank you. I just have a couple of questions.
Dr. Rivlin, you were with us when we wrote the Control Board
Act. You were at the White House. We worked very cooperatively
together. Before that you were prophesying for years this is
where the city was heading if they didn't make some changes and
they didn't heed your advise. As we approach now the end of the
Control Board's active oversight under the act, are you
confident at this point that the Control Board--that the act
should allow the Control Board to phaseout at this point and
that the city is moving in the right direction and that Mayor
Williams and the Council are doing the appropriate things?
Ms. Rivlin. I am, though I think there's a lot more to be
done. But I would not advocate extending the Control Board
beyond the period in the current statute.
Mr. Davis. I just wanted to get that on the record, not to
say that there isn't more to do but the reasons you were
created in terms of the fiscal mismanagement and everything
else, you have made tremendous progress.
Ms. Rivlin. That's correct. You will remember, Mr.
Chairman, that the act does not say that the Control Board is
abolished at the end of the last control year. It says that it
somehow, I forget what the words are, but its activities are
suspended, it goes dormant, and it could come back if things
went into a bad situation.
Mr. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Could I just have a word on that? The chairman
and I were a party to that, so people won't think that that
means that there's a looming Control Board hanging over you,
that's a much better way to account for any possible threat of
insolvency in the future because the chairman and I would never
want to go through what we went through together. We were
strong home rule advocates, in fact produced a statute that
left home rule in place. The District gave back a lot of that
home rule through the appropriation process through the way it
dealt with the Control Board. What it does was to set criteria
that are rather draconian before any Control Board could pop
up. But we would certainly not want to ever have to come before
the Congress and start all over again. We would rather have
exactly what we have now, which is automatic sunset. And if
things really go down the tube, if you miss a payday, for
example.
Mayor Williams. It's not going to happen.
Ms. Norton. Then of course automatically you would have a
board to come in place. Otherwise, the chairman and I, if that
were to happen again, I think we might be faced with a
receivership and not the notion of a Control Board at all. So I
don't think that the fact that there is a dormant Control Board
is any threat to elected government in the District of Columbia
because we do not see now, neither the chairman nor I, that the
circumstances that would give rise to the springback of a
Control Board would occur again.
Mr. Davis. You're absolutely right. Whoever sits in this
chair in the future and whoever sits in yours, you don't want
to have to put them through what we went through. I think that
strong oversight is the best remedy for no interference quite
frankly and a good dialog in terms of everybody sharing. I
think we've all learned from our past mistakes. Mayor Williams,
I just want to ask you a few questions about the education
system in the city. You came up with I think a fairly bold
proposal. The Council has taken its cut at it as we move ahead.
I don't know that if my adding my opinion to that helps or
hurts your cause or Council's cause in the city, within the
city politics but I want to make an observation and allow
everybody to respond. We took a major step this year in
Congress in giving D.C. students the same right students
everywhere else have and that is basically to pay instate
tuition, make a college education, a quality college education
and broad based choices available at affordable rates,
something that is very, very important. College if it's not
affordable it's just a dream and people really don't pursue it.
But we still have to get people to that level where they're
ready for college, where they're attuned for that, and the
educational system in the city, I think Ms. Ackerman has done a
great job as the superintendent but it's still lacking in a lot
of ways. As the Control Board phases out and we go through
these other items, we return back to a school board that has
basically been dysfunctional for 30 years in my judgment. Mayor
Williams, you had a proposal to get some accountability
basically under the Mayor's office and Mayor and Council. The
way we used to do it in Fairfax before we went to elected
boards is the county board would appoint the members of the
school board and we were accountable. What is happening to that
proposal? How are we going to get to--it's being chewed apart
by the local media and so on. But this is the toughest nut for
this city to crack. If you really want to get your residential
areas booming again, getting people moving into these houses
that they're building in Anacostia and other areas, you have to
have a school system that people are willing to send their kids
or they have to be so wealthy that they'll send their kids to
private. And that's a nonstarter. Organizationally how you set
that up, what is the accountability, who's in charge is a
critical component to that. I think we all understand that the
current system prior to the Control Board wasn't working. Mayor
Williams, let me just ask you where do we go from here, how do
you feel about it and then just say I applaud the leadership
you've taken and I think the Council needs to be a partner in
this, but going back to where we were before I think gives me
some concern, I think it gives a lot of our colleagues some
concern. We obviously want this resolved within the city
without having congressional interference. As you know, a lot
of my colleagues have had absolutely no compunction about
interfering in the D.C. educational system at any time. So
we're looking for you to try to resolve this.
Mayor Williams. Right now, Mr. Chairman, as to my proposal,
I believe that--I'm willing to say that since as the chief
elected official of the city I'm going to be held responsible
every day, certainly 3 years from now, for the quality of the
education of our children, it's only fair that I be given the
authority commensurate with the responsibility, that this is
the most critical thing that we're going to do, that we have to
put in place a system so that you have a strategy, you can
build the support, you can have the operations all working
together for our kids. Right now we've got everybody finger-
pointing at one another and we're not allowing Arlene to be the
superintendent that I think she really can be with the support
that she really needs. That's my feeling. Now, in a political
point of view despite the support from I think a number of
rank-and-file citizens and the leadership of the city, I think
we're cresting at two votes on the Council so we're not doing
as well as we could be doing on the Council, and I think the
moral of that story is the Washington Post doesn't run the city
because clearly if they ran the city we wouldn't be sitting at
two votes. Having said that, I think entering this debate I
think has really helped because I think that there is, and
Linda can speak more authoritatively on this than I can as it
goes through the Council, but it seems to me that there is a
consensus on the following, that there should be elected
leadership for the board, there should be stronger operational
authority somewhere with or aligned with the Mayor and that we
need to define better the roles and responsibilities of the
Board. Those three things. I think everyone agrees.
My problem with what came out of the Council a couple of
days ago was that left intact without any modification, you
have an elected board that's either completely advisory and
frivolous, and I don't think that's going to work, or you have
a board with some authority and a Mayor with some authority and
we've gone from a situation where we have six or seven people
in charge to a situation where we have only three or four but
you still have blurred accountability. So I'm meeting with
Councilman Chavous this afternoon, have been talking regularly
with Linda, be talking with the whole Council and try to work
through something that meets the test of focusing
accountability and trying in one way or another to satisfy some
of the Council's concerns. I think the question though is
really not--ultimately the question in our city and other
American cities is not whether or not we're going to have an
elected board or an appointed board. The real fundamental,
important question looming is whether we're going to be able to
really see our public school system not only survive but thrive
and avoid what more and more people are saying is vouchers.
Mr. Davis. That is, as you know, barring substantive
changes in the way the city does things, Congress has voted
that before, that's a very hot item, and I think if there's an
admonition here it's to have you work these issues out so we
feel there's some proactivity going on at the local level
because my colleagues, I think many of them are not going to
hesitate to try to take control if they don't see that. I would
also add that within the city itself we are seeing polling
numbers on vouchers and other issues where citizens get upset
if they're not getting quality. They want to see at least some
changes from what we currently have. That's my comment sitting
as an outsider and someone across the river who is trying to do
everything we can to give those kids the same opportunity in
the city that they have out in my District.
Ms. Cropp.
Ms. Cropp. The Council feels strongly that perhaps one of
the No. 1 issues that we face is improving the educational
system of Washington, DC, so that we can produce children who
can be functioning members of society, educated children who
will be functioning members of society. The Council feels so
strongly about it that this controversial issue of school
governance was initiated by the Council. It was the Council who
recognized very clearly that the system of governance that we
have now was not functioning. Under the leadership of the
Education Committee chair Kevin Chavous, a proposal was put
forward on school governance. With that an awful lot of debate,
controversy, and I think healthy, has started in this city. We
still need to decide on I think what the basic issue ought to
be, and that is what system, what form of governance will
really produce a better educated child. Now, we keep hearing
whether or not it should be with an elected leadership of an
elected board of education or whether or not it should be with
the appointment by the Mayor. That's where it has centered at
this point. I think everyone's goal is to have a better
educated child. I would suggest that if the Mayor, if the Post,
if Congress, if the President, if the Council can share data
with us that would show that an appointment as opposed to an
elected board would present a better educated child, I think
the Council would be there. The Council will truly be there. We
have done research on the issue to try to get that type of
information. We constantly hear about cities such as Chicago
where it has occurred, Boston, Cleveland, and when you look at
the data, data does not support necessarily any improvement at
all with the student. Now, if you're talking about the
political alignment, yes, there's a difference. But when you
look specifically at the students, the data does not support
that, that I have seen at this point, and the Council has tried
to get it and we want it because it will help us make a more
informed decision. Where we have seen a difference is in one
school district, where I think it's about 2,700 students, and I
think it was Cleveland, where there was significant improvement
with the students, and that happened to have been with what the
Mayor just said, the vouchers, and it was where the students,
2700 students had vouchers and there was significant
improvement there. We have not yet in the District seen that
type of improvement across the board. We do think that the
governance needs to change. We're in dialog with the Mayor to
try to figure out what the best approach for us to take in the
District of Columbia. How can we help for the system to be more
accountable? We're all pleased that the Mayor is stepping up to
the plate and saying, ``Hold me accountable.'' we think that
with the Mayor's total involvement with the school system, we
will end up with a better school system. The only way education
is going to improve is for the Mayor, for the Council, for all
of us to understand its strong importance. We're looking at
that issue, we're debating the issue and hopefully we will come
out with something that will make for a better system.
We have made some changes. We have reduced the number of
school boards, members on the school board. What we found as we
did the research throughout the country that the average size
of a school board is from five to nine members. We had 11
members, way above the average. We heard concern with regard to
the school boards being tied up too politically and being too
vested in their own ward as opposed to the overall interest of
the city as a whole, so we looked at the districts for the
school system and we changed that. We're looking at the
superintendent, because we strongly believe that the
superintendent ought to be a part of the Mayor's Cabinet in the
sense that what we do in human services, we talked an awful lot
about, the school system needs to be a part of it. What we do
with economic development in our work force, the school system
needs to help to train our young people to be available for
that. So we will continue the discussion and hopefully the
outcome will be one that we all want, and that is one that will
present a better educated child.
Mr. Davis. Chairman Cropp, thanks. I know your longstanding
commitment to education as well. This is the toughest nut to
crack. Everything else--I guess my only admonition is we're
looking for you to solve this. That's where it ought to be
solved, at the local level. It doesn't necessarily happen that
way all the time but to the extent you all can work these
issues out, it makes it a lot easier. Anything else anyone
wants to add at this point?
Let me just say we might want to supplement with a question
or two that we'll send you but you've been up here for 2\1/2\
hours. We very much appreciate your testimony. I'm most
encouraged to hear your comments today. Without objection, the
record will remain open until February 1. The subcommittee may
be sending written questions to the witnesses to followup on
issues raised. We will certainly have additional hearings on
these matters. I want to continue to work with all interested
parties to achieve these objectives. These proceedings are
closed.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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