Preserving and improving the quality, accessibility, and affordability of child care is an ongoing need of the early education system.
Tazra Mitchell
(she/her)
Chief Policy and Strategy Officer
Tazra works with the Executive Director to develop and execute DCFPI’s strategic vision and goals, policy and legislative strategies, and policies and practices for a healthy, thriving team. She leads the policy team and provides strategic direction for policy and research, working closely with the senior leadership team to enhance cross-team and cross-functional collaboration for improved policy impact and team cohesion. Prior to joining DCFPI, Tazra was at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the North Carolina Budget & Tax Center. She also had roles in the North Carolina government, working on fiscal policy. Tazra holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from North Carolina State University and a master’s from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
Recent posts by Tazra Mitchell
DC Makes Bold Progress on Fair Pay for Early Educators
by Tazra Mitchell and Danielle Hamer
Every child deserves a strong start and a high-quality education, beginning at birth. Paying educators livable salaries is one step needed to boost teacher satisfaction, retention, and quality care, thereby improving DC’s early learning system.
DC Can Do More to Improve Economic Security for Mothers
This Mother’s Day, DC Councilmembers have the opportunity to celebrate the District’s mothers, birthing parents, and caregivers through action.
Testimony at the Performance Oversight Hearing for the Office of Chief Financial Officer
It is critically important that the OCFO improve their accuracy with revenue forecasting, which would better enable the Mayor and DC Council to use DC’s resources fully and effectively to help residents and businesses.
New Local and Federal Revenue Help Advance Tax and Racial Justice and Helps Residents Thrive
As revenues and the local economy rebound, DC lawmakers must continue to seize opportunities to make the bold investments necessary to further address long-standing racial inequities. This means ensuring that the District continues to take bold steps to advance racial justice in the tax code, including addressing injustices and inefficiencies in property taxes, corporate business taxes, and tax giveaways.
On Labor Day, let’s thank the DC Council for making transformative investments that support recovery for all workers
Labor Day as a federal holiday was itself an achievement won by labor activists and a reminder that many of our rights and protections on the job are hard-won. This year, DC took important steps towards supporting workers.
On Labor Day, let’s thank the DC Council for making transformative investments that support recovery for all workers
Labor Day as a federal holiday was itself an achievement won by labor activists and a reminder that many of our rights and protections on the job are hard-won. This year, DC took important steps towards supporting workers.
Statement from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute: Budget is Progress Towards Racial and Economic Justice
This year’s budget is one of the most important in DC history. DCFPI praises the Mayor and DC Council for seizing this unprecedented opportunity and making bold investments to address the ongoing suffering caused by the pandemic, which is disproportionately harming Black and brown communities.
A Modest Tax Increase Won’t Drive Out High-Income Residents or Small Businesses
We’re in the final stretch of the DC budget process, when the DC Council will have the opportunity to make large strides towards an anti-racist, equitable recovery. Councilmembers are weighing choices that have the potential to usher in bold, transformative investments that meet the urgency of this moment. Yet misguided worries about “tax flight” are giving some Councilmembers pause.
Ruqiyyah Anbar-Shaheen and Tazra Mitchell: A workforce exodus threatens DC’s child care recovery
As demand picks back up, child care programs are making some tough choices: Charge parents more than they can afford to retain staff and pay them fairly, or pay early educators less than they deserve to serve families.
Testimony of Tazra Mitchell, DCFPI Policy Director at the Budget Oversight Hearing, DC Council Committee of the Whole
The District has an unprecedented opportunity to leverage American Rescue Plan (ARP) dollars by pairing this federal support with local recurring funds to move toward full funding of the Birth to Three for All DC Act—which is the road map for a better, more resilient early education system.
Testimony of Tazra Mitchell, DCFPI Policy Director, at the Public Hearing for Tax Proposals to Build Wealth Equity in the District’s Post- Covid-19 Economic Recovery DC Council Committee on Economic and Business Economic Development
DCFPI supports highly progressive taxation aimed at high-income residents and high-wealth residents. Expanded wealth taxes are an add-on to more progressive personal and corporate income taxes and other progressive taxes, not a substitute. The funding raised would both reduce wealth concentration and could fund transformative investments in Black and brown households and communities.
Advocates’ Letter to Mayor Bowser: American Rescue Plan Offers DC a Down Payment on a Just Recovery and Future
by Tazra Mitchell, Kate Coventry and
Nearly 80 organizations organizations sent Mayor Bowser and the DC Council a letter urging them to use the funds on intentional investments and interventions in a timely way, with a laser focus on targeting those most in need and addressing the racial inequities that have excluded Black and brown communities from economic gains and left them more vulnerable to the COVID-19 crisis.
American Rescue Plan Offers DC a Down Payment on a Just Recovery and Future
The $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package passed by Congress in March–the American Rescue Plan (ARP)–is an unprecedented opportunity for the District to truly “build back better.”
Testimony of Tazra Mitchell at the Performance Oversight Hearing for the Office of Chief Financial Officer DC Council Committee on Economic and Business Economic Development
DCFPI’s review finds several ways that OCFO operations limit the ability to use DC’s resources, and we recommend several changes to financial operations to improve the ability to invest in the community.
Tax Injustice: DC’s Richest Residents Pay Lower Taxes than Everyone Else
by Tazra Mitchell and Danielle Hamer
The richest 1 percent of DC residents pay less in DC taxes as a share of their income than middle-income residents, according to new findings from a leading tax research organization, and the richest 20 percent pay less than the bottom 80 percent of residents combined.
DC’s Financial Challenges Remain, Even As its Budget Deficit Shrinks
The District’s economy and tax collections are doing better than projections in December, according to the Office of Chief Financial Officer’s (OCFO) February 26 revenue forecast but financial challenges remain.
Revenue: Advance Policies that Support an Equitable Pandemic Recovery
The Fiscal Year 2022 budget will be one of the most important in DC’s history. This year’s budget choices have the potential to address the ongoing damage and suffering caused by the pandemic, and to put DC on a path for a recovery.
Is DC Really Using Several of Its Reserves as Rainy Day Funds?
DC’s budget for Fiscal Year 2021 shows that three of the District’s four reserves are fully funded. But the evidence is clear—the District is using only a small fraction of its reserves to address the harm of the pandemic.
The COVID-19 Recession is DC’s Rainy Day, but Reserve Rules Limit its Response
As the District enters the second year of the pandemic, revenues are projected to fall by $2.5 billion over four years and deep cuts in services could be on the horizon.[1] To soften these losses, lawmakers should change the restrictive rainy day fund rules that make...