TITLE I – Governance of District of Columbia
 

Subtitle A – General District of Columbia Governance

·        Sec. 101. Budget flexibility.  Ensures that the District government has sufficient resources available to administer services in the event of unforeseen circumstances, this section would authorize the D.C. to spend an aggregate amount of not more than 6% of unappropriated local funds during the 2006-2008 fiscal years. 

·        Sec. 102. Authority to allocate reserve funds.  Authorizes the District to tap into the emergency and contingency reserve funds, provided that D.C. reimburses the funds.

·        Sec. 103. Permitting GSA to provide services to the Public Defender Service.  Authorizes the General Services Administration to obtain space and services on behalf of the District of Columbia Public Defender Service, a non-federal entity that receives all of its funding from federal appropriations.

·        Sec. 104. Authority for District to Enter Into Interstate Insurance Compact.  Permits the District of Columbia to enter into an interstate compact regarding insurance product regulation.  This provision is being added at the request of the District due to concerns that the District does not have the authority to enter into such a compact without explicit congressional authorization.

Subtitle B – District of Columbia Courts

·        Sec. 111. Register of wills modernization. Enables the D.C. Court to integrate information technology into their administrative services by removing outdated requirements such as the requirement that the Court maintain records in “strong bound books.”

·        Sec. 112. Pay cap for nonjudicial court employees.  Revises the pay cap available for nonjudicial employees from Executive Schedule IV to Executive Schedule III to enable the courts to effectively implement a performance management system.  This would put the nonjudicial personnel of the D.C. Courts on par with the nonjudicial employees of the federal courts in the District.

·        Sec. 113. Services of investigators.  Provides a technical change to the statute governing the rate of pay available for individuals providing services to indigent defendants pay applying the $25 / hour pay cap to only investigator services rather than experts and other service providers.

·        Sec. 114. Emergency authority to conduct affairs outside the District.  Provides the D.C. Court with the authority to conduct business outside D.C. in the event of an emergency that made it impossible or impracticable to operate within the District.

·        Sec. 115. Authority of CSOSA to use services of volunteers.  Authorizes the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency to use the services of volunteers in accomplishing its statutory mission. 

·        Sec. 116. D.C. Court technical corrections.  Provides technical corrections to an authorizing provision that was carried in last year’s D.C. appropriations bill relating to the statutes governing the D.C. Court.

Subtitle C – Other Miscellaneous Technical Corrections

·        Sec. 121. 2004 D.C. Omnibus Authorization Act. Makes a technical change to a provision carried in last year’s authorization bill pertaining to the District Council’s consideration of the budget.

·        Sec. 122. 2005 D.C. Appropriations Act.  Makes a technical change to the D.C. Home Rule Act to clean up a change to the Act that was adopted as part of last year’s D.C. appropriations bill.

·        Sec. 123. Technical amendments relating to last year’s provision regarding oversight of locally chartered banks. Includes a number of technical corrections to federal banking laws to address the change included in last year’s D.C. Authorization bill that transferred oversight of locally chartered banks in the District from being overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

TITLE II – INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

·        Sec. 201. Permanently authorizing the District CFO.  Permanently authorizes the District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer, detailing the responsibilities, the hiring and firing procedures, and the term for the Chief Financial Officer.  This section would also establish in statute the duties and responsibilities of the D.C. Treasurer. 

·        Sec. 202. Personnel authority for the CFO.  Provides independent personnel authority for the District Chief Financial Officer.

·        Sec. 203. Procurement authority for the CFO.  Provides procurement authority for the District Chief Financial Officer.

·        Sec. 204. Fiscal impact statements.  Requires that all legislation passed by the D.C. Council be accompanied by a fiscal impact statement.

TITLE III – AUTHORIZATION OF CERTAIN GENERAL APPROPS PROVISIONS

·        Sec. 301. Acceptance of gifts by CSOSA.  Authorizes, for fiscal years 2006 through 2008, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency to accept gift of space and training to support offender and defendant programs and the Public Defender Service to charge fees to cover the costs of materials distributed to attendees of educational events (also for FY06-08). 

·        Sec. 302. Public school employee negotiation process.  Exempts the evaluation process and instruments for evaluating DCPS employees from collective bargaining. 

·        Sec. 303. Exemption of District employees from federal civil service laws. Permanently exempts District government employees from title 5 of the United States Code. 

·        Sec. 304. Criteria for renewing or extending sole source contracts.  Iterates that, during fiscal years 2006 through 2008, a noncompetitively bid contract could not be renewed or extended unless the CFO determined that the contract was renewed or extended in accordance with duly promulgated rules and procedures. 

·        Sec. 305. Acceptance of grants.  Authorizes the Mayor to accept, obligate and expend federal, private or other grants received by the District that are not reflected in the District’s budget as approved by Congress, provided that certain reporting requirements are met. 

·        Sec. 306. Annual independent audit standards. Clarifies, for fiscal years 2006 through 2008, the requirements of the annual independent audit conducted by the District’s Inspector General. 

·        Sec. 307. Use of fines imposed for violation of traffic alcohol laws.  Requires the District to use any revenue generated from District traffic alcohol laws exclusively for the enforcement and prosecution of the District traffic alcohol laws. 

·        Sec. 308. IDEA attorneys.  Requires the CFO to establish practices to enhance the transparency of the disclosure processes for attorneys in special education processes.