Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers:

I have nothing but questions and concerns about the the Summer Youth Employment Program and the fact that there are still hundreds of youth employed in this program who have not been paid for attending Orientation (June 17-June 22) and there are even more youth closer to numbers in the thousands who have not been paid for their work from June 22-July 3 (pay day was 7/15/09).

Some of the most underpaid and non-paid youth belong to the Mayor's Youth Conservation Corp, or the youth that wear the blue and white shirts and clean up throughout the city. These youth have not been paid for their time worked. First, they issue them DC One Cards that almost none of the youth received to be able to be scanned in at work; this process did not work at most of these sites because nearly none of the sites have the devices, nor the computer to check the youth in. The sites were relegated to signing the youth in and signing the youth out on random sheets of paper, by other youth Team Leaders who are the same age as the youth that they are supervising. These Team Leaders were not paid or severely underpaid as well, so they have no desire tor interest in ensuring that the youth under their charge are paid at all.

You may ask why do we not know about this, well because they are telling the youth to call 311 and not to come to the main office at 625 H Street NE. Youth are continually fed the lie that the money will be on their card in 24-48 hours and that was last week. Well today, July 23, one week and one day after the initial pay date of July 15, the youth have still not been paid.

What do you think a 14 year-old, first time, worker or card holder will do, they will keep calling their card to see if the money has been added to the card and if they do they are charged between $.50 and $2.00 per call ($2.00 per call after the 3rd call); youth are not aware of the charges until they are told it is negative. Youth have negative balances on cards, that they have not even used, in amounts as high at $30.00 in some cases. This Visa Card vendor is robbing the youth of the District of Columbia. The youth are the victims with no way to recoup their losses. Youth start out in the negative before they even get paid. Who would negotiate a contract with a vendor that would put children in such an economically tenuous predicament. Youth are behind before they start. What a horrible message to send to first-time workers of such an impressionable age.

Now we are embarking on our children getting paid again on July 29, and almost half of the youth employed in the program have not been paid from their first initial full pay of July 15.

This city has a responsibility to its most innocent of constituents to protect them for predatory financial institutions; and to have the Summer Youth Employment Program allow a credit card company to rob children is beyond reprehensible.

Mr. Mayor, this program bears your name and you owe the parents and youth of this city some oversight and honest answers about this pay card vendor and the payments to our youth. When children are being taken advantage of it cannot and should not be tolerated.

Councilmembers, these are your children in each of your Wards and yet you sit in silence and do nothing to protect them from these predatory actions by both ADP, Inc., and DOES.

In closing, for Director's Anthony and Walsh to continually deceive these youth by not paying them and having the representatives of this city government agency to lie to children and keep telling them that they have been paid in full when they have not and some have not been paid at all, is unconscionable.