STEPTOE'S Responses to League of Women Voters' 411 Voter Guide

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COMPARE CANDIDATE CAROLYN C. STEPTOE'S RESPONSES TO QUESTIONNAIRE - Published on LWV's vote 411 website: http://www.vote411.org



D.C. Ward 5 City Council

QUESTION: The Tax Revision Commission recently released their findings. What are your positions on the various tax code changes recommended by the Tax Revision Commission? How would you ensure that the tax code would protect less affluent taxpayers while continuing the revitalization of neighborhoods and overall economic development?

CAROLYN C. STEPTOE'S RESPONSE: In 2012, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute published its census data report about D.C.’s income inequality gap. DCFPI’s report indicated that the District has one of the highest levels of income inequality among the nation’s cities (‘income inequality gap in D.C. one of nation’s widest’), with the top fifth earning on average 29 times the income of the bottom fifth. Only Atlanta and Boston showed higher levels of income inequality in 2010. DCFPI’s report stated that the dichotomy was the result of two vastly different economies in the District. One is populated by college graduates thriving in well-paying information and government jobs. The other is for people lacking higher education, scrambling for even low-paying work. The Institute’s executive director opined that “it’s a sign of what a vital, attractive city this is, but that means the job market is really hard for anyone who doesn’t have advanced skills.” The report further notes that the gap in income levels in the District is particularly striking in comparison to the region as a whole.

In Ward Five, income disparity is stark and prevalent. In spite of published 2012 reports citing the average Ward 5 family income as $79,000, disproportionately high numbers of minority Ward 5 households live just at or below the poverty line, receive food stamps, TANF, are jobless and have low educational attainment. While I agree with DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Fair Budget Coalition and other advocacy groups that the recommendations are a bold step in the right direction to make DC’s tax structures more fair and progressive, unfortunately, the $40,000 base tax threshold applicable to both the (1) addition of two new middle income brackets to lower some income tax rates for moderate income residents and (2) give tax relief measures like raising the Earned Income Tax Credit for childless workers and raising the Personal Exemption and Standard Deduction to federal levels – may not provide significant or substantive relief toward income disparity need by the city’s large number of poorer residents and households.

In order to ensure the tax code protects the less affluent taxpayers and residents, I agree with DC Fiscal Policy Institute and DC Fair Budget Coalition that the increasing the tax rate at the top (and adding more top brackets) would both make the income tax structure truly progressive and help pay for tax relief measures for lower income residents.

QUESTION: What policies do you support to create more affordable housing?

CAROLYN C. STEPTOE'S RESPONSE: According to research, most policymakers consider housing affordable if it consumes less than 30 percent of a household’s gross income. If housing costs are higher than that, families must choose between shelter and other basic needs and will struggle to weather financial setbacks. Due to the city’s high income disparity, with the average median income now calculated in 6-figures, I wholeheartedly support the D.C. Zoning Rewrite Process on The Board of Zoning Adjustment Rules on the Inclusionary Zoning: Redefining Affordability in DC.

Specifically, the District must structure inclusionary zoning programs to pick up where rent control ended. The goal must be to preserve and protect affordable housing options for DC’s residents. Currently, with over 70,000 persons on the affordable housing wait list and with many reports showing because of the very hot housing market which is driving up rents and taxes at seemly uncontrollable rates in the District, there is very serious displacement impact for these residents. Indeed, a very significant population of most impacted District residents are seniors, elderly, families with children and individuals on fixed, limited and/or restricted income. With that, the D.C. Zoning Rewrite. The D.C. Zoning Rewrite is an excellent opportunity for the city to fix the current inclusionary zoning regulation problem by amending the existing zoning definitions of affordability that are based on incomes with at least two of the wealthiest counties in the Nation called the Area Median Income (“AMI”). The AMI metric includes incomes of households in the counties of Fairfax, VA and Montgomery, MD as required per federal HUD calculations which is not only unpredictable, as it fluctuates yearly, but because of its relation to VA and MD, AMI cannot truly paint a real picture of DC’s unique affordability needs.

An additional policy I support is that the Zoning Commission amend the DC Municipal Regulation 11-2601.1, which defines affordability eligibility for low and moderate income households, and dispose with an unpredictable and unreal AMI metric, replacing it with a metric more solidly based on a percentage of annual federal minimum wage (“AFMW”).

QUESTION: What improvements would you support to improve the election process and increase voter participation?

CAROLYN C. STEPTOE'S RESPONSE: I wholeheartedly support term limits for all D.C. elected officials. Our city needs council reform and we must limit the number of terms a councilmember can serve. It is an affront to D.C.’s limited self-governance of balanced representation that elected councilmembers can remain in office indefinitely as career politicians backed by political machines of big money and lobbyists. We know District of Columbia voters have, for some time, been disheartened with their status quo, if not self-serving, elected officials. A frequently heard refrain is that DC’s politicians do not care about the citizens who placed them in office and that, ‘you only see and hear from them when they are up for re-election.’ Low voter turnout is attributable to the belief that long-term councilpersons get re-elected and simply continue the same non-productive legislative decisionmaking contrary to District residents and District taxpayers. DC elected officials must engender confidence from our voters. Officials must demonstrate commitment to the residents who live and pay taxes in the city and must cease priority accommodation to businesses who receive taxpayer perks off the backs of our residents. Our career politicians have lost sight of the citizens who put them in office. Voters all too frequently continue to see big money lobbyists and campaigns contributors as priority of DC politicians. Our city has seen insider trading equivalents, councilpersons’ inability to work together, fiscal irresponsibility and overall taxpayer-funded benefits and perks our DC elected leaders enjoy - all while we struggle. Term limits may reduce the number of (1) career DC council politicians, (2) public perceptions of pay-to-play conflicts of interest and (2) vested lobbyist and special interest corruption in our government by our elected leaders. Term limits may likely both birth a newly elected officials not prone to exploit the system for personal gain and also an elected leader skeptical of lobbyists & special interests. Restricting the career service of our elected officials with term limits prevents those career politicians from amassing too much power and becoming too alienated from constituents. Our city must remove the intense focus on politics and instead return to policy for our citizens. Our city needs council reform and one major change to our election process to ensure increased voter participation is term limits.

What is the major issue facing our charter schools and the major issue facing our traditional public schools? How would you address these issues?

CAROLYN C. STEPTOE'S RESPONSE: While the charter school versus public school debate, one key question always lingers: Do children in charter schools learn more than kids in traditional public schools? Research is highly mixed—in part due the complexities of comparison and wide performance differences among charters. According to a 2013 NPR report, there has been years of disagreement over charter school data. The 2013 26-state study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes for example, concluded that children in most charter schools are doing worse or no better than students in traditional public schools. About a third are doing better and that is a big jump from four years ago. Does the reality of charter performance match this study? Not according to the Center for Education Reform. They claim Stanford manipulated data and made conclusions about policy based on 'un-credible' data. Additionally, Change.org noted numerous studies confirm that charter achievement is indistinguishable from that of traditional public schools. Some are successful, some are troubled and struggling, and the rest are somewhere in between just like traditional public schools. Because charters are publicly funded institutions that operate under their own standards of conduct and curriculum, they are given the freedom to establish their own methods of operation, similar to how many private schools are able to operate their instructional and social practices. Yet, despite these freedoms, many experts argue that the charter schools are under-performing in comparison to public schools. On the other hand, supporters of charter programs argue that the data used to draw negative attention to charter school scores is misleading, biased, or falsely computed. Further, some observers say that charters, by virtue of their autonomy, can be vulnerable to financial problems and mismanagement. Outside of managerial concerns, some critics have charged that, on a school-by-school basis, charters are more racially segregated than traditional public schools, thus denying students the educational “benefits associated with attending diverse schools.” To address these issues, education policy must require certified educators, empirical data, tangible innovative successes and budgetary funding allocation to meet these very challenging issues. City policy must ensure that our students are not used as test cases or experiments nor relegated to second-class status.

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Paid for by Candidate Carolyn C. Steptoe, 1257 Lawrence Street, NE, 2013 Ward 5 D.C. City Council candidate (D.C. Official Code §1-1102.10). A copy of our report is filed with the Director of Campaign Finance of the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics (D.C. Official Code §1-1102.01(e)).