"Auditor's Review of Compliance with the Living Wage Act and First Source Act Requirements Pursuant to the Compliance Unit Establishment Act of 2008"
Committee on Economic Development and Housing and Workforce Development, Kwame R. Brown, Chairperson, Michael A. Brown, Chairperson
Thursday, July 08, 2010 10:00 AM Location: John A. Wilson Building, Room 412
I would like to thank Chairperson Kwame Brown for initiating a bill leading to this Act that sets up a badly needed monitoring apparatus for investigating the compliance of developers with respect to First Course and Living Wage requirements, as well as the DC Auditor Deborah Nichols for her outstanding review of compliance (really non-compliance) under this Act. I also thank Councilmember Barry for his remarks that provided an historical understanding of First Source and for noting the refusal of our Mayor to implement the monitoring procedure by not spending any of the $780,000 passed by the City Council for the first two years from the passage of this Act.
I am not surprised by the documented non-enforcement of First Source requirements (51% of hires must be DC residents) and Living Wage requirements by our Mayor’s Office, in view of the consistent pattern of disrespect shown by our Mayor to our low income and working class majority and his support of big developers in their economic development programs which has furthered gentrification and the growing lack of truly affordable housing.
I recommend consideration of the following steps in new legislation to force compliance with First Source and Living Wage requirements:
1)Require shut down of active projects for developers not meeting these requirements until DC residents are hired at living wages in union jobs (an approach in other cities as mentioned by Councilmember Michael Brown).
2)Fine such violators at meaningfully high levels consistent with their multimillion dollar assets and target such fines to fund job training and adult education.
3)Prioritize First Source hiring in Wards with the highest unemployment (Now: Wards 7,8 and 5).
Finally, I strongly urge the City Council to increase funding for job training, partnering with unions, and to restore funding for essential programs immediately, in particular those programs cut by the Council in the FY2011 budget, namely adult education, child care, interim Disability Assistance and Emergency Rental Assistance, as well as the $50 million cut in the FY2010 budget for affordable housing and other essential programs. Further, immediate steps should be taken to implement apprenticeship programs for green jobs in our high schools (for details go to: http://www.statehood4dc.com/schwartzman/greencollarjobs). Revenue for these steps can be found in restructuring our DC income tax to make it progressive, providing tax relief for our majority and a modest tax hike for our wealthy residents, especially DC millionaires (for details on this Fair Tax and Revenue Plan go to: http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org/testimony/fairtax and
www.dcstatehoodgreen.org/testimony/budget_request_act_and_budget_support....
Given the fact that so many of our residents now live in depression level economic distress conditions it would simply be unconscionable that our City Council and Mayor would not act now to restore and expand the so-called survival budget.
David Schwartzman
Tax & Budget Coordinator
DC Statehood Greeen Party
At-Large Council Candidate
dschwartzman@gmail.com, 829-9063
