Testimony of Amy Dudas, Senior Advisor, Career Readiness, Budget Hearing for the Department of Employment Services Committee on Executive Administration & Labor

Good afternoon Chairperson Bonds and members of the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor. My name is Amy Dudas (she/her), and I am the Senior Advisor for Career Readiness at DC Action. DC Action convenes the Youth Economic Justice Coalition which comprises youth housing and workforce development providers, research and policy partners, youth and community leaders to develop career readiness policy priorities that will improve economic mobility outcomes for Black and brown youth in the District.

We recognize the challenging budget outlook and constrained resources facing the Council and this Committee. We also acknowledge the impact of reductions to the federal workforce on the District’s revenues and our Black and brown residents who built their careers and livelihoods within the federal workforce. While our Coalition does not seek programmatic enhancements to DOES’s budget given these constraints, we do want to highlight opportunities to strengthen the District’s investments in career readiness within the broader context of our shifting local economy.

Within the proposed budget for the Department of Employment Services (DOES), top-line budget priorities are maintained for programs intended to equip youth with high-value skills and career preparation. We commend the Mayor and DOES for prioritizing the stability of these programs, as young people continue to advocate for well paid, high-quality career readiness opportunities and early work experience to address structural and racialized barriers to workforce participation. 

Specifically, participant wages for the High School Internship Program (HSIP) are held steady at $324,000, enabling another year of spring and summer sessions for approximately 250 students. Youth development providers have raised the need for DOES to continue advancing operational improvements to the selection and matching processes experienced by youth and host employers of the program. While DOES has enabled helpful improvements like resume and host employer search functions to the portal, a streamlined process for youth and host employers who want to select each other would be helpful. Improvements to time tracking and payroll systems are also needed to ensure youth are paid accurately and on-time. Currently, youth track their time on paper timesheets, which then must be entered by their host employers and submitted for approval by DOES. Automating this process would expose youth to real-world timekeeping practices and reduce an administrative burden on host employers, ideally inspiring more employers to become host partners for this important career readiness program.

Furthermore, we are relieved to see that federal grant levels for year-round WIOA Youth programs and their associated participant wages are stably-funded at $2.45M and $1.29M, respectively. While federal shifts to these policies and funding mechanisms are likely, we know they provide uniquely supportive services for youth who face barriers to education, training, and employment. We urge DOES to prioritize academically disconnected youth and those facing acute barriers to workforce participation if this funding should shift to more flexible block grants in the next fiscal year. 

Despite a slight overall budget increase, the Mayor Marion Barry Summer Youth Employment Program (MBSYEP) budget actually includes a cut of $413,218 for participant wages. This is particularly disappointing as young people have been advocating Council to pass and fund the Pay Our Youth a Fair Summer Wage Amendment Act of 2025, which would require an additional $8.9M annually to raise MBSYEP wages to $10/hr for 14 and 15 year olds and to the DC minimum wage for all older participants. Higher wages, when financially feasible for the District, will positively impact program retention and completion, helping more youth to earn wages to sustain their participation in a developmental program that can lay groundwork for long-term earning potential.

Moreover, we appreciate the agency’s efforts to improve research and outcomes tracking within the current fiscal year. The FY25 Office of Youth Programs Research Grant Request for Applications (RFA) was released this spring, and we are encouraged this research will improve our shared understanding of the long-term impact of DOES youth programs on career development outcomes including on-time grade promotion, high school graduation or credential attainment, employment rates, median earnings, postsecondary credential attainment, and skill gains. We urge this Committee to ensure that funding does not experience any disruption as the FY25 supplemental budget shuffles the District’s resources and priorities.

Finally we urge the members of this Committee ask the following questions about specific program budgets when government witnesses testify next week:

• Where is the Career Ready Early Scholars Program (CRESP) funded within the agency’s budget? How much will the program receive in FY26, including participant wages? Is this an increase, decrease or stable funding from FY25?

• How does DOES account for a cut of $413,218 to participant wages for MBSYEP? Will this cut be dispersed across all wage-bands served by the program? Is there a projection to serve less youth? If so, by how many and why?

• DOES’s Year-Round Youth Program cluster saw a slight overall increase in funding, with participant wage budgets increasing significantly from $1.29M in FY25 to $2.18M in the proposed FY26 budget. How did the agency balance this increase to participant wages? What are the funding levels for each of the programs funded in the YRY cluster? What are the budgets for participant wages across each program in this cluster?

• We see stable funding for WIOA Youth Programs in FY26. Will the agency commit to continuing to prioritize youth with acute barriers to education, training and employment should federal requirements become more flexible under a block-grant structure?

 DC Action knows funding streams beyond the purview of this Committee are likely to disrupt essential, stabilizing services for youth experiencing housing and mental health crises, and, while commendable, DOES’s proposed FY26 budget only maintains the District’s career readiness programs. With looming shifts in federal career readiness priorities and further reductions to the District’s revenue sources, we urge this Committee and DOES to maximize every dollar of the District’s career readiness investments. These are critical services with the unique ability to help young people generate income and insulate youth and their families from service, program and coverage cuts across the budget.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I welcome any questions.