Curtis Lewis, chief fiscal officer of the Department of Employment Services, which runs the program, declined in an interview to elaborate on the $10.8 million figure. He said the program ran under budget because 19 percent of its participants didn’t finish.
That dropout rate would leave more than 11,000 participants each earning $1,000, adding up to more than the latest budget estimate. The officials said the projected cost also includes administrative costs, such as 22 part-time staff hires, 24 employees working on the program full time, orientation sessions, site visits and an independent evaluation.
Officials could not fully explain how the $6 million surplus arose nor what would happen to it. Employment Services Director Lisa Mallory told the committee that the money would have to be spent by Sept. 30 but that she didn’t know how it would be used.
The program was originally budgeted at $14.4 million and was expanded to $16.8 million when the mayor added funds for an additional 2,000 participants, according to Lewis’s testimony.
The oversight committee’s chairman, D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large), greeted the budget surplus as a major achievement for the often-troubled program, which in recent years has run as much as $30 million over its budget.
“The 2011 program did right by the young people here in our city, but it did right by the taxpayers, as well,” Brown said.
After the hearing, Brown said the final spending won’t be determined until the figures submitted by Mallory’s agency are reviewed by the city’s chief financial officer, Natwar M. Gandhi. Lewis also referred questions to Gandhi’s office. A spokesman for the chief financial officer said that the numbers had not been certified and that he did not know how the amount was calculated.
Mallory said the 19 percent attrition, while on a par with recent years, is something the program should improve.
Still, officials and community leaders said they consider this year’s program a success. There were far fewer reports of logistical problems; Brown said his office received only one complaint, compared with a flood of distressed calls and e-mails in previous summers.
Trisha Taylor, a program coordinator for the Sitar Arts Center, which used summer hires, told the committee the program benefited from allowing employers to screen applicants. Rene Wallis, director of People Animals Love, said none of the 20 participants her organization selected ended up assigned there. Still, she said, this year’s program was “light-years better.”
Mallory said the program also saved costs by developing a new in-house timekeeping system, allowing her department to resolve nearly all of the 1,382 reported pay disputes within two days.
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