The former interim director of the District’s Department of Human Services has been rehired — as the new interim director of DHS.
Kate Jesberg, who served in the leadership role under Mayor Anthony Williams for seven months in 2006, has been lured away from a human services consulting job by Mayor Adrian Fenty. Her appointment was announced last week.
Jesberg is “extremely pleased” to serve in the administration temporarily “until such time as the mayor appoints a new director for the Department of Human Services,” she said through a spokeswoman.
Brian Wilbon, whom Fenty appointed as interim DHS director in early January, no longer is with the D.C. government. The administration “decided to go in another direction,” and the two sides agreed it’s in their respective best interests to part ways, Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said.
Jesberg had served for 20 years in the District government before her exit last October, including a stint as leader of the Income Maintenance Administration, where she helped welfare recipients get jobs and impoverished children get medical help. She is an expert in welfare policy development and administration.
Fenty praised Jesberg’s appointment last March, when he was a D.C. Council member and chair of the Human Services Committee. The long troubled department had seen a series of failed directors, including one whoserved just four days until she resigned in the face of a nepotism allegation.
