Thomas Nelson, a 54-year-old SYEP supervisor, pled guilty today on charges that he sexually abused a 17-year-old girl working in the program. more ›

This morning, the D.C. Council voted down Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposal to extend the 2010 Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) for an additional seven days. The only votes in favor of the proposal were Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5) -- who hosted six teenagers in his office as part of SYEP -- and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4). The Council's vote will return about $4 million to the city's fund for homelessness services. (Hardly a place where extra money will go to waste.) We weren't particularly shocked by the vote -- the debate over the program's fiscal management got pretty feisty yesterday, and this isn't the first time the Council has spared with the Mayor about SYEP's budget. At one point, Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) summed up SYEP's approximately $11.5 million overage thusly: "To borrow a phrase from my daughter, this blows." more ›

The final tally is in on this year's Summer Youth Employment Program, courtesy the Washington Post's Nikita Stewart. The program cost $41 million this year, which is "significantly less than last year, when the mayor promised a job to any youth who wanted one, but enough to eclipse similar programs in most big cities." This year's program was criticized less for payroll problems and more for employed kids either doing a crummy job or appearing to be doing not much at all. And of course, remember that the D.C. Council has limited the 2010 program to only $20 million, which would hardly cover the kind of all-inclusive program for which Mayor Fenty has always pushed. For his part, Fenty appears unconcerned: 'Fenty said he is determined to find a way around the council's caps on next year's program. "There's a long time between now and next summer," he said.' more ›