D.C.'s lame-duck Council faces a crammed November 10 agenda while Lewis George inherits a budget hole that could reach $850 million

Why this matters to D.C. residents

Four days after Janeese Lewis George won the mayor's race, the outgoing D.C. Council is rushing to close out its own unfinished business. On Monday, November 10, the body will convene at the John A. Wilson Building for a triple-header: a pre-legislative breakfast at 9 a.m., a Committee of the Whole at 11 a.m., and a full legislative meeting immediately after. The session's most consequential items touch D.C. residents directly. Firefighter pay. Student housing. Agency spending controls. And underneath all of it, an inherited fiscal crisis that one council member has already taken to calling, privately, "the hellish budget reality."

The November 10 agenda, item by item

The Council's posted legislative requests, published Friday on dccouncil.gov, list a firefighters' contract approval as one of Monday's most urgent pieces of business. At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds is sponsoring PR26-0823 and PR26-0824, an emergency declaration and an emergency approval resolution covering the compensation and working conditions agreement between the District government and the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 36, AFL-CIO.

The push didn't come out of nowhere. IAFF Local 36 President David Hoagland had warned earlier this year that firefighters worked for nearly two years without a contract, and that the new agreement would need to cover three fiscal years: 2025, 2026, and 2027. Members of the DC Fire Fighters Association voted to ratify the collective bargaining agreement after what they described as nearly two years of negotiations with the District.

Also on the agenda Monday are two student housing bond resolutions tied to the Madrone development, listed under Chairman Phil Mendelson. The Council is set to take up the Madrone DC Student Housing I, LLC Revenue Bonds Project Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2026, along with a companion emergency approval. These are the same bond measures flagged in the Council's initial post-election session planning.

Beyond those big-ticket items, the agenda also includes B26-0428, the Youth Work Permit and Employment Protection Act (renamed from its 2025 version), B26-0843, the Events DC Excess Cash Calculation Clarification Amendment Act of 2026, and a Budget Support Act Implementation Facilitation Emergency package that spans an emergency declaration, an emergency amendment act, and a temporary amendment act. That last cluster is technical but consequential: it deals with how D.C. agencies can shift money mid-year without full Council review.

Members of the public can join all three November 10 meetings virtually. The first is the pre-legislative breakfast, the second is the Committee of the Whole, and the third is the Legislative Meeting. The breakfast starts at 9 a.m., the Committee of the Whole at 11 a.m., and the Legislative Meeting immediately follows.

The deficit Lewis George will walk into on January 2

The Council's packed Monday session runs alongside a parallel emergency unfolding inside Lewis George's transition headquarters: a fiscal picture that multiple sources describe as severe.

Lewis George could face a budget deficit of anywhere from $650 to $850 million that she'll have to close somehow, whether by raising additional revenue or cutting spending. Her signature campaign idea, a child care-for-all subsidy, will be difficult to fund if there's a $680 million budget gap, and her goal to build 72,000 homes in five years would require more construction than the city added over the past decade.

The deficit isn't abstract. Lewis George will have to find ways to kickstart D.C.'s slumping economy after federal layoffs and related cuts that have cost the city more than 36,000 jobs, while weighing that against her promises to raise taxes on wealthy residents and close loopholes that benefit law firms and lobbying shops.

In her first post-election news conference, Lewis George called for a forensic analysis of government operations and spending to address the budget challenges. On day one, her team will start building a budget proposal, but she was vague on specifics about proposing new taxes, saying only: "Our tax system currently isn't fair and I think everyone believed that we can make it fairer and that we needed to take a balanced approach."

While teachers, police officers, and firefighters have all recently received new contracts and raises, there is currently no money in the budget to extend the same treatment to other unions. That means Monday's firefighter contract vote, while resolving a two-year standoff, also adds to the pile of financial commitments the incoming administration must fund.

Police chief, schools chancellor, and the transition taking shape

On Wednesday, November 4, Lewis George announced her transition team, launched a jobs portal for people interested in joining her incoming administration, and outlined the work ahead as she prepares to take office January 2, 2027.

The police chief search is already moving. Lewis George said her team has engaged and contracted with the Police Executive Research Forum to conduct a local and national search. "I'm not going to put a timeline on that process. We obviously want to make sure we have someone there, but we want someone who is quality. I'm confident we can find that person," she said.

Lewis George told reporters she has not met with any candidates and is not rushing the process to have someone in place on the first day of her administration. The Forum has run similar searches in Baltimore and Boston. No deadline for a selection has been set.

Schools are equally in play. Lewis George will also pick a new chancellor for DC Public Schools. "We expect a chancellor that is willing to take the task of addressing chronic absenteeism. In the past, we have not done all that we can do around special education," she said. As of the 2024 to 2025 school year, 38 percent of DCPS students from kindergarten through 12th grade were chronically absent, meaning each missed 10 percent or more of the school year.

The transition team itself is built around veterans of prior administrations. The co-chairs include Aaron Jenkins, a former Obama administration appointee; Beatriz "BB" Otero, who served as deputy mayor for Health and Human Services under former Mayor Vincent Gray; and Gautam Raghavan, former director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Jennifer Levy serves as transition director.

As part of the transition, Lewis George is also tapping D.C. youth who will be charged with creating their own agenda and an advisory council to help guide her decision-making on issues including mental health services, policing, and juvenile curfews.

On federal relations, Lewis George is not shutting any doors yet. Her transition team has reached out to the White House, and she is open to working with the president on projects that would benefit the District, including improvements to the transit hub at Union Station and the beautification of D.C. parks.

Council vacancies add more pressure

Monday's legislative session takes place with two seats already empty. Lewis George holds the Ward 4 seat but, as the mayor-elect, is effectively in transition mode. She will be sworn in on January 2, and on that day she will resign from her Ward 4 Council seat. Robert White's resignation from his at-large seat is also now effective, meaning both vacancies will need to be filled through special elections. Lewis George and her team have roughly two months to prepare for the administration's start and begin determining how to turn campaign promises into policy while confronting the District's financial and political challenges.

That two-month window is unusually compressed. The lame-duck Council still has a November 24 legislative meeting on the calendar, and the Budget Support Act emergency measures on Monday's agenda suggest agencies are already feeling the squeeze of the fiscal year transition.

What D.C. Residents Should Watch

• Monday, November 10, 11 a.m.: The D.C. Council's Committee of the Whole and full legislative meeting at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Room 500. The public can watch via Zoom registration on dccouncil.gov. The firefighters' contract emergency approval (PR26-0824) is the vote to track most closely; if it passes on emergency status, it takes effect immediately without the standard 30-day congressional review period.
• The Budget Support Act emergency bundle: The package of emergency declaration, emergency amendment, and temporary amendment dealing with budget implementation could quietly expand agency spending flexibility before Lewis George takes control on January 2. Watch whether any council member calls for a roll-call vote rather than voice approval.
• The police chief search timeline: Lewis George has contracted with the Police Executive Research Forum but set no deadline. Ask her team whether a finalist must be named before inauguration or whether current Chief Pamela Smith stays in an acting capacity past January 2.
• DCPS chancellor vacancy: Chancellor Lewis Ferebee's status has not been officially confirmed. Lewis George's comments about chronic absenteeism and special education suggest she wants a clean break. Watch for a formal announcement that Ferebee is out.
• Special election timeline for Ward 4 and the at-large seat: The D.C. Board of Elections will need to set dates. Under home rule, special elections typically require at least 70 days' notice. The first possible dates put any vote in mid-March 2027 at the earliest.

Verified: Council agenda items drawn directly from dccouncil.gov. Budget figures attributed to The Washington Sun and Axios D.C. Police chief search details attributed to WTOP, WUSA9, FOX5 DC, WJLA, and NBC4 Washington. IAFF Local 36 contract ratification attributed to the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO.

Sources: DC Council, Nov. 10 legislative requests | WTOP | WJLA / 7News | WUSA9 | NBC4 Washington | FOX5 DC | Axios D.C. | The Washington Sun | Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO