D.C. government employees reward themselves

The D.C. government employees tasked with providing care to the city’s poor have taken home nearly half of the more than $1 million in bonus money awarded by the District during the first half of fiscal 2005.

Nearly 400 employees in the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) received approximately $479,000 in extra money in their paychecks from Oct. 1, 2004, to March 31, 2005, according to D.C. Office of Personnel records.

Citywide, the D.C. government awarded 565 bonus payments for $1.06 million.

D.C. City Council member Adrian M. Fenty, chairman of the council’s Committee on Human Services, which oversees the Department of Human Services, yesterday said he’s going to conduct an inquiry of the department’s bonuses.

“The Department of Human Services is not one of our better-running agencies right now,” said Mr. Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat and mayoral candidate. “We’re going to do a full scrubbing of this.”

Officials from the department yesterday said they were unable to respond to inquiries seeking comment for this story by deadline.

During the past year, however, department officials have noted several improvements, including a reduction in teen-pregnancy rates and a recent award from the federal government for management of the city’s food-stamp program.

But the department also has been criticized for the closure last year of a homeless shelter in Southwest. And a D.C. Auditor report in September 2004 sharply criticized the department’s management of subsidized child-care programs.

The report said a lack of oversight “fostered wasteful use of District and federal funds.”

Bonuses for 389 Human Services workers averaged about $1,200 each. By contrast, other agencies spent far less within their departments, yet often gave more generous individual bonuses to a handful of government executives.

The Office of the Chief Technology Officer, for example, distributed $71,757.70 to nine employees. Six received more than $8,000 each, including Robert Legrande, deputy chief technology officer. His $12,000 bonus ranked second-highest among all incentive awards.

Each of the top bonus recipients earned a salary of more than $120,000 per year.

The top bonus in the city went to an employee who no longer works for the District. Eric Price, former deputy for Planning and Economic Development, received a $13,239 bonus before his resignation in January 2005.

Only one other employee received a bonus topping $10,000. Stephen Green, director of development for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, who helped broker the District’s baseball stadium deal, received a bonus of $10,332.

The Human Services employees receiving bonuses were largely mid- or lower-level employees, including social-service representatives, program analysts and clerical assistants.

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