Did I say $75M? I meant $96M.
Turns out the $75M estimate that WTOP went with as part of this morning’s news update is really more like $96M… City CFO Natwar Gandhi attributes much of this shortfall to the drop in commercial value from $1.85 per $100 of assessed value down to just under a dollar per $100. Now, $100M out of a $5.5B budget isn’t a huge shortfall, but that’s still a decent sized hit for the city to have to make up.
So the council has a choice at this point: repeal the tax cut they just gave to companies that operate out of DC, or find a new source of $96M to make up for the shortfall. Or, they need to raise taxes elswhere. Or, they need to find $96M to cut from the budget for 2009.
Not an easy choice.
You know, if you’d listen to NPR in the morning instead of the craptastic WTOP, you wouldn’t have this kind of confusion…
Cranky, I’m a proud member of WAMU and hear Morning Edition five days a week. The story I reported from WTOP came via their web edition.