A contractor for D.C.’s public schools was paid twice for the same job and the schools have not recouped their loss one year later, the contractor told The Examiner.
The Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Institute was paid an extra $233,000 last year, institute spokeswoman Carol Shannon said.
The institute discovered the overpayment in late September, after an audit, Shannon said. On Oct. 4, the institute called schools comptroller Abinet Belachew to report the error. A week later, it was agreed that the school system would deduct the overpayment from the institute’s next check, Shannon said.
“They were going to adjust future payments to us,” she said. “And that didn’t happen.”
The institute, a private nonprofit organization affiliated with Catholic Community Services, teaches about 60 special education students from the public schools. It’s paid more than $2.7 million every year under an informal arrangement, Shannon said.
Last month, the institute called again to remind Belachew about the “adjustment.” He assured officials that he would oversee the adjustment himself and that it would be in December’s bill, Shannon said.
“They say they’re in the process of this right now,” she said.
Finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young said that the deduction will be taken out of the Dec. 26 payment. She refused to comment on rumors that Belachew and another top school official were quarreling over disciplining the employees who were responsible for the error.
D.C. Public Schools pay nearly $94 million per year to private groups like the Kennedy Institute because it doesn’t have the capacity to educate its own special education students.
The Kennedy Institute has been teaching special education students from the public schools for more than 20 years, Shannon said. But the institute doesn’t have a contract because the public schools canceled all contracts with sectarian groups more than a year ago due to concerns over separation of church and state.
