On November 22, 2000, President Clinton signed P.L. 106-522 (formerly H.R. 5633 ), an act appropriating funds for the District of Columbia forFY2001. In one of the actions it took between election day on November 7, 2000,and the Thanksgiving holiday, the House and the Senate approved H.R. 5633 by unanimous consent. An earlier version of the act, H.R. 4942 ,was approved by the Senate on October 27, 2000, and by the House on October 26,2000. However, the conference version of H.R. 4942 included fundingfor Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State. The President in a letter datedOctober 26, 2000, indicated that he would veto an otherwise acceptable District ofColumbia Appropriations Act because of objections surrounding the inclusion ofCommerce, Justice, and State appropriations to the act. These include issuesrelating to immigration, tobacco litigation, hate crimes, the sale and display of socialsecurity numbers, Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund, and number of riderscharacterized by the Administration as anti-environmental and anti-competitive. On September 27, 2000, the Senate passed its version of H.R. 4942 , theDistrict of Columbia Appropriations Act forFY2001, two-weeks after the Houseapproved its version of the bill on September 14, 2000. The House bill includes $414million in special federal payments to the District of Columbia. The Senate billincludes $448 million in special federal payments to the District. A significantpercentage of these payments is for court operations and criminal justice activities.The city's general fund budget, as passed by the council and approved by the controlboard, includes increased funding for public education and economic development.On June 7, 2000, the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and ManagementAssistance Authority approved a city council-passed budget for the 2001 fiscal year.The $5.5 billion operating budget, which must be approved by Congress, includes$445.4 million in special federal payments to the District of Columbia. Table 1. Status of District of Columbia Appropriations: FY2001 On November 29, 1999, the President signed the Consolidated AppropriationsAct for FY2000, P.L. 106-113 . Division A of this act appropriated funds for theDistrict of Columbia for FY2000. Since the passage of the Act, District of Columbia voters, their elected leadership, the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility andManagement Assistance Authority (the Authority), and Congress have taken actions that will affect the structure and efficacy of the District government. These changesinclude: improvements in the city's financial condition, including the city's third consecutive year with a budget surplus; and proposed amendments in the city's home rule charter that would change the size and composition of the Board of Education (Board). These changes have been accompanied by: a controversial 13-week delay incompletion of the city's annual financial report; debate concerning structure,composition, and effectiveness of elected versus appointed school boards; and theresignations of the city's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the superintendent ofpublic schools. In addition, the District government has had to address problemsrelated to special education, foster care, Medicare fraud, and court operations. During the last year, the Authority's role has evolved from that of direct management of the daily operations of the city's nine largest agencies to one ofexercising oversight of the District government. This transition has been aided by congressional support for Mayor Williams' government reform efforts, as evidencedby congressional passage of the District of Columbia Management Reform Act of1999, P.L. 106-1 . The Act, which was signed March 5, 1999, transferred directadministrative authority for the District's nine largest agencies from the Authority tothe mayor. The District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act of 1995 ( P.L. 104-8 ) created the Authority and the Office of Chief FinancialOfficer (CFO). The Authority and CFO are charged with improving the delivery ofcity services, and returning the District of Columbia to a position of financialsolvency. Working in concert with the District's elected political leadership, theAuthority and the CFO have implemented a series of financial and managementreforms and have improved tax collection. These reforms, federal assistance, and animproved economy have resulted in three consecutive years of budget surpluses. P.L.104-8 requires the District to produce four consecutive years of balanced budgets asa prerequisite for the abolition of the Authority and the return of home rule. The District ended FY1997 with a surplus of $185,900,000. For FY1998, the city's budget surplus was $112,492,000. (1) After a13-week delay, the city's CFO reported a FY1999 surplus of a $86.4 million after subtracting a $35 millionpayment to the retirement of the city's long-term debt. The CFO's delay in releasingthe Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) strained the CFO's relationshipwith the mayor, the city council, the control board, and the private firm charged withconducting the annual audit. The 13-week delay in the CFO's release of the report- due February 1, 2000, but not released until April 29, 2000- triggered criticism of theCFO's leadership, and eventually contributed to her resignation. In a February 28,2000, letter to the Authority, eight members of the council requested her dismissal. Council members cited the CFO's failure to: meet the statutory deadline for the CAFR; produce trial balances during FY1999; adequately ensure that District of Columbia staff participatedin training on the new financial management system; and notify elected official of theCAFR delay. On June 13, 2000, during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, Alice Rivlin, the chair of the Authority,noted that the District is anticipating a budget surplus of $57 million for FY2000, anda projected accumulated general fund balance for FY2001 of $260 to $270 million. Like so many District government institutions, the city's public educationsystem has experienced changes during the past year, and will face challenges in thecoming months. Reforming the city's Board of Education, improving theperformance of public school students, continuing support of charter schools as analternative, hiring a new superintendent, and addressing the problems of specialeducation students are but a few of the challenges that must be addressed. School Board Reform. In 1999, members of the Board of Education clashed over allegations that Board of EducationChair Wilma Harvey improperly used school board personnel for personal projects. Eventually, the Board replaced Harvey as chair and installed Robert Childs, anat-large member, as chair. The chairmanship controversy jeopardized the scheduledJune 30, 2000, transfer of administrative authority to the existing school board, andrefocused city and congressional attention on the need to reform what many perceiveas a flawed and ineffective institution. The direction of school board reform in the District of Columbia, including the size of the school board, and whether to elect or to appoint school board members,has been a hotly debated topic that was decided by the voters (51% for the hybridBoard of Education and 49% against) in a referendum vote on June 27, 2000. Muchof the debate on elected-versus-appointed boards involves matters of accountability,democracy, efficacy, and expertise. (2) Supporters ofan elected board believe that suchboards are directly accountable and sensitive to the concerns of residents becausethey are democratically elected. Detractors argue that elected boards, particularlythose elected by ward or district, are too parochial in their focus, and too partisan intheir politics. School boards, they offer, often serve as a political training ground forpersons with higher political aspirations who are more interested in building apolitical base than in improving the schools. Supporters of appointed boards contend that appointed board members are more likely to bring education or other expertise to the board's deliberations, and are lesslikely to be subjected to, or swayed by, partisan or parochial pressures to protect theinterest of a particular group in order to win political advantage. Detractors arguethat appointed boards are subject to patronage and are selected in an undemocraticfashion. The mayor and the city council settled on a hybrid board comprising both elected and appointed members after considering and rejecting proposals that wouldhave: allowed the mayor to appoint the superintendent and a five-member Board of Education; transferred control of the schools, including thehiring and firing of the superintendent, to the mayor for a specific period afterdeclaring a state of emergency, and then returning power to a restructured andsmaller seven member elected board; reduced the Board of Education from 11 to seven electedmembers; and allowed District residents to choose between a nine-member electedschool board and a five-member board appointed by themayor. The latter proposal, which was initially approved by the city council on February 1, 2000, was criticized by Alice Rivlin, the chair of the Authority, who argued thata referendum fight over an elected versus appointed board would be divisive. Sheurged the council and the mayor to support a single plan or face the possibility ofAuthority or congressional action. On February 17, 2000, after weeks of debate, the city council, with the mayor's support, approved a bill (PR13-295) that would restructure the District of ColumbiaBoard of Education pending approval of a referendum by District voters and a 35-daycongressional review period, during which a resolution of disapproval could beoffered to repeal the Act.