The District of Columbia’s new mayor will have a permanent chief financial officer, thanks to Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va. 11th), who included a provision to permanently fund the city’s CFO in the District of Columbia Omnibus Authorization Act approved by voice vote today by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The CFO position, created when the D.C. government was under the rule of the Control Board, had operated on a year-to-year basis. It has been subject to the federal appropriations bill, which, since the Control Board went out of existence, has passed annual extensions of the CFO authorizing statute.
Under HR 3508, the District of Columbia Omnibus Authorization Act, introduced by Davis and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., the CFO will have its own personnel and procurement authority, and the D.C. Council will have to have a fiscal impact statement for all of its legislation.
This was the second straight year Davis and Norton introduced an omnibus authorization bill for the District rather than taking up its authorizations piecemeal. This consolidates the matters, under federal law or the D.C. Home Rule Act, for which the city government must approach Congress.
Another provision in the bill revises the pay cap for nonjudicial court employees to enable the courts to implement a performance management system. This puts D.C. courts personnel on par with nonjudicial employees of federal courts in the city.
Others allow D.C. courts to operate outside the city in emergencies, allow the District to tap into emergency funds in the 2006-2007 fiscal years, provided it reimburses the funds, and authorizes the District to spend up to 6 percent of unappropriated local funds for unforeseen circumstances without coming back to Congress during the mid-year supplemental spending process.
