For the D.C. Council, it’s Christmas in October.

In his emergency supplemental budget request now before the D.C. Council, Mayor Adrian Fenty has allocated $121.6 million to 22 causes, including $76.2 million for the D.C. Public Schools, $12 million for street, alley and sidewalk paving, and $500,000 for a new burn unit at Children’s National Medical Center.

Millions more dollars were appropriated to projects in individual wards , an effort to appease the nine members of the council Fenty will need to win approval of his emergency bill — a thorny issue given that he announced over the summer the schools would need no additional funding.

The executive’s responsibility, Fenty said Friday, “is to address the issues of the policy-making body of this government.” He did not address the political implications of his budget request.

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“The executive has done the legwork to make sure there is support of a majority of members,” said at-large Council Member David Catania, a key supporter of Fenty’s education reform initiatives.

That’s not to say council members, even those who back the mayor, are satisfied with what’s been allotted. When the bill comes up for a vote in the coming weeks, expect a wrestling match over the cash, which is coming from the fiscal 2007 surplus, the fiscal 2008 reserves and the anticipated fiscal 2008 surplus.

“Wrangling over money?” Ward 1 Council Member Jim Graham asked. “What else do we wrangle over?”

Ward 6 Council Member Tommy Wells, for example, said there is not enough money set aside for alley repairs and street repaving. At-large Council Member Phil Mendelson said the mayor has included no dollars for the Department of Corrections, which is facing numerous lawsuits over inmate processing and detention.

Among the ward-centric projects, Fenty proposed $1 million for Park Morton in Ward 1, $3.5 million for the Georgetown Waterfront Park in Ward 2, $100,000 for Peirce Mill in Ward 3 and $500,000 for youth outreach at Langston Terrace in Ward 5. He included $14 million for summer youth employment, a subject near and dear to Ward 8 Council Member Marion Barry, and $1 million more for a small business loan program sought by at-large Council Member Kwame Brown.

Breaking down the $76 million for DCPS:

» $47 million for Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s operations and reform initiatives

» $22 million for negotiated pay increases, cost-of-living adjustments and retroactive payments to employees

» $7 million for severance and accumulated sick and leave time tied to impending layoffs in central administration

mneibauer@dcexaminer.com