Gotta love the Summer Youth Employment Program: Nothing like a hard day's work to teach kids a thing or two about holding a job and personal responsibility and keep them away from things like gangs, violence, and illicit substances.

Well, gangs and violence, anyway.

A City Desk reader captured this sight with a cell phone cam yesterday morning, around 10:30 a.m., on the 1500 block of Marion Street NW:

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Plenty of folks at this point (hat tips: Scott's Take, DCist) have pointed out that the Mayor's Conservation Corps---part of the city summer jobs program---have spent their first days on the job handing out paper doorhangers.

Many of them have ended up on the street and sidewalks, and then there's the obvious irony of promoting a green initiative by distributing tons of thick paperstock around town.

LL called up the D.C. Department of the Environment, which runs the Green Summer Jobs Program, and asked spokesperson Alan Heymann about the doorhangers and the ironical elements at play.

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The D.C. Council failed to endorse a proposal to limit this year's summer jobs program to six weeks.

The 7-6 vote came on an emergency measure introduced by Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry that would cut this year's Summer Youth Employment Program from the nine weeks planned by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. (Emergency legislation requires nine votes to pass.)

In remarks introducing the measure, Barry called last year's disaster an "embarrassment for the nation"---this, of course, from a man who knows from national embarrassment.

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray also spoke in favor of the bill, and spoke highly of Barry's efforts to create and nurture the program, which, he pointed out repeatedly, has "historically" been six weeks. "I think we have an obligation to the young people in this city to show that we can make this program work," he said.

Ward 7's Yvette Alexander had more prosaic concerns---why take up kids' entire summers with work? "Let a child be a child," Alexander said. "Let our children enjoy their summer!"

At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown expressed skepticism at the Fenty administration's claims that they had already identified jobs for all 22,000 registered participants in the program. "This is a joke," he said. "I was born at night, but it wasn't last night....Can we be real here?" He went on to take the Fenty administration to task for planning for a $40 million-plus program, when the current budget supports only half that.

Also voting in favor were Mary Cheh, Phil Mendelson, and Michael A. Brown. Barry still didn't have enough votes.

Read More "Council Proposal to Limit Summer Jobs Program Fails" »

This morning, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty provided yet another update on the status of his beloved summer jobs program. Nearly 24,000 kids have signed up, "the highest level of enrollment in decades" with a "record number of job opportunities," according to a news release.

Fenty has committed to accommodating all comers, even though last year's program went more than $30 million over budget under a similar lack of constraints.

In recent days, the spiritual godfather of D.C. summer jobs has made it clear he doesn't share Hizzoner's expansive view of the program.

"I'm not going to participate in this craziness," says Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry, who started the Summer Youth Employment Program as mayor in 1979. It's widely regarded as one of Barry's political masterstrokes, engendering almost unanimous and endless goodwill from an entire generation of Washingtonians.

Barry, however, is not sold on Fenty's plans, he tells LL.

Read More "Barry: Expect Weekly Hearings on Summer Jobs" »

Looks like Vince-'n'-Victor show has turned into a bit more than a show. More than that, it looks like the baseball ticket feud between the council and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has given way to conflict much more substantive.

According to a budget report released tonight, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray is proposing to cut the office of Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso by some 80 percent. Where the mayor had proposed a $4.04 million budget for the office, Gray is proposing outlaying only $778,000 for the office. He proposes taking the office from 21 employees down to seven.

In other big news, all the lobbying by charter schools and their advocates has paid off: Gray's looking to restore $16.7 million to the charter facilities budget (though not the full $24 million). Where did the council find much of the money to do so? From Fenty's beloved summer jobs program.

The proposed reduction in the deputy mayor's budget corresponds to a movement of various functions out of Reinoso's shop and into others. Some agency oversight functions are being transferred to the State Superintendent of Education; the Interagency Collaboration and Service Integration Commission and its $2.3 million budget is being sent to the DCPS Office of Youth Engagement; and the schools ombudsman will fall under the State Board of Education's purview.

As for charter facilities funding, under the committee plan, the method of funding will remain the same for another year, delaying the mayoral effort to move to a "cost-based" system. However, the formula will decrease from $3,100 per student to $2,800 per student.

If you think mayor-council relations were bad before, consider this a declaration of all-out war. Gray is taking direct aim at what Fenty considers the cornerstone of his mayoral legacy: public education reform. Reinoso was tasked with being Fenty's big-picture, behind-the-scenes guy responsible for steering the whole educational ship in the District, from early education to charter schools to facilities management to DCPS to UDC. But Gray never saw much strategic direction out of Reinoso's office, and it didn't help that Reinoso repeatedly clashed with Gray when he testified before him---if he testified at all.

That's borne out by the report, which reads, "[S]ince the creation of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, no statewide education strategy has been created or established, even though approximately $2 billion is invested annually in public education in the District of Columbia, not including the District’s educational facilities capital program....The Committee is concerned that there is a continuing environment of uncoordinated efforts, initiatives, and budgets between early childhood education, the traditional public schools and charter schools, and the University of the District of Columbia, as well as the strategic planning of educational facilities for all public education sectors."

The slap being delivered by raiding the Summer Youth Employment Program for $10 million is even more vicious for who is delivering it: Marion Barry, the father of the summer jobs program and current chair of the committee on housing and workforce development. It's rare for a committee chair to willingly give up a huge chunk of the budget under his oversight, but make no mistake that Barry considers it worth it to send a message to Fenty.

The plan is still subject to a vote by the full council---this is the committee of the whole, after all---but expect Vince to have the votes on this one.

UPDATE, 12:30 A.M.: After having a closer look at the COW report, LL realizes he may have buried the lede. Gray is proposing to essentially triple the proposed budget of the State Board of Education and to make it "a separate entity within the District of Columbia Government, with sufficient resources and staff to fulfill its important mission." That responds to concerns that, under the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the board did not have sufficient institutional distance from executive functions of government. But before you start thinking this is the second coming of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, read this: "No additional roles, responsibilities or authority over educational decisionmaking will be assumed by the Board as a result of this transition."

Another item of note: Gray has found $5.4 million in his proposal to fully fund the "Pre-K for All" legislation passed by the council last year. The report had strong words for the gap in the mayor's budget plan: "Disappointed is a mild description of the Council’s response to the failure of OSSE and this Administration to honor its commitment to the expansion and enhancement of pre-kindergarten (pre-k) services to District residents."

Make no mistake: The summer jobs program is gonna work this year.

Just look at the program's Web Site: "Welcome to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's Summer Youth Employment Program for 2009," reads the banner headline.

Politicians are know for attaching their names to everything in sight, but not usually to programs which nine months ago had imploded in a cloud of overspending and fraud. Others might have scaled back expectations, but not Fenty. At a press conference at Ballou Senior High School this afternoon, he announced it's full steam ahead on summer jobs.

The details for SYEP 2009, such as they exist so far, are impressive. The registration process is online-only.Three times as many slots have been offered by private employers. All sorts of database checks are in place to prevent mass fraud. A top private contractor will be handling payroll. And 3,000 kids have already signed up.

Read More "Fenty: Full Steam Ahead on Summer Jobs" »