In giving final approval to the FY 2013 Budget Support Act today, the D.C. Council voted to delay additional cuts in TANF for a year. Councilmembers Jim Graham and Michael Brown introduced the amendment with the one-year delay language, and all but three Councilmembers voted in favor of the amendment. (Councilmembers Alexander,Catania, and Mendelson voted against the delay).
In passing this amendment, councilmembers recognized that the District government had failed TANF families by not doing proper assessments and not having appropriate work supports in place. Councilmembers said that penalizing families for the District’s failures was simply unfair.
The one-year delay will allow for improvements in the TANF re-design to take hold and for families to be properly assessed under the re-design. We’re grateful to the D.C. Council for hearing the pleas of families like Ms. K’s and for voting to give kids a fighting chance!
