Bill Myers, The Examiner
2008-08-11 07:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

The chaos surrounding Mayor Adrian Fenty’s summer jobs program has cost the city finance office thousands of dollars of overtime as D.C. bureaucrats scramble to find ways to pay the youths.

A team of 30 accountants and managers has worked at least 300 hours of overtime in Fenty’s $53-million-plus jobs program, according to figures provided by the finance office. Hundreds of teens and college-age students have gone without pay or with inadequate pay in the Fenty administration’s jobs program.

The program has been a regular feature of Capital City summers since it was started by former Mayor Marion Barry, who said he wanted poor youngsters to learn the value of hard work. Fenty has made the summer jobs program a priority of his regime and has recruited an unprecedented 19,000-plus youngsters for the effort.

But the summer jobs program has been beset by problems from the beginning. The 10-week effort was originally budgeted to cost $14.5 million, but Fenty spent at least $32 million in its first three weeks. He asked finance officer Natwar Gandhi to provide another $20.1 million from the city’s rainy day fund.

Part of the problem, according to high-ranking City Hall officials, is that Fenty has ordered that every teen be paid for the maximum hours per week, regardless of how many hours they actually worked.

Fenty spokeswoman Carrie Brooks hasn’t responded to requests for comment.

Top-placed City Hall sources have told The Examiner that Fenty’s main concern is to make the summer jobs program bigger and better than Barry’s version.

Barry, now a Councilman for Ward 8, has blasted Fenty’s summer jobs program and asked the inspector general to investigate the irregularities in it.

Got a tip on the Fenty administration? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him e-mail, at bmyers@dcexaminer.com.