


D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty Friday unveiled a fiscal 2010 budget that calls for eliminating more than 1,600 jobs, freezing tax exemptions and imposing new fees to help the city close a roughly $800 million shortfall.
“We have searched agency by agency and line by line, seeking enhanced efficiency and better ways to provide services,” said Mr. Fenty, a Democrat.
The third spending plan of Mr. Fenty’s mayoral term comes in the midst of a national economic recession that has seen the city confronted with declining revenues and an unemployment rate of more than 9 percent in January.
The budget contains $5.4 billion in local funds — down nearly 4 percent from the $5.6 billion in the mayor’s fiscal 2009 proposal — and eliminates 1,631 positions: 776 through layoffs, 398 through attrition and 458 that are already vacant.
A total of 145 positions would be cut from public safety agencies — including 45 civilian positions in the Metropolitan Police Department and 28 positions in the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department — while the city’s human services agencies stand to lose nearly 800 positions, including 240 in the Department of Mental Health.
By Robert F. Turner
We need to remember the war the way it really happened
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