The D.C. government will launch a new initiative to connect seniors from the District’s two HBCUs with apprenticeships within city agencies as part of a strategy to hire and retain talent, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced on Oct. 18.
“[Students in D.C. schools] have a change-the-world mindset,” Bowser said, announcing the program as part of a brief interview at Bloomberg CityLab 2023 conference. “We want people to know they don’t have to move away, they don’t have to work for a think tank, they don’t have to work for the feds — they can do that in local government.”
The HBCU Public Service Program will create 25 spots for next year’s graduating seniors from the University of the District of Columbia and Howard University by converting existing positions into full-time, one-year apprenticeships at partnering agencies. The Department of Employment Services aims to get the program running in February 2024, according to emailed responses from agency director Dr. Unique Morris-Hughes.
The program is intended as a win-win proposition, providing recent graduates with career-launching pads while helping the District with vacancies it has struggled to fill. While the specific partner agencies and potential positions have not yet been announced, Morris-Hughes mentioned social work and information technology as possible areas of focus.
“For the mayors who are running cities and have to provide incredible city services, we continue to need police officers, teachers, firefighters, 911 call takers, case managers — and there’s just an incredible competition for that talent,” Bowser said in her interview at the CityLab conference.
Staffing shortages within city agencies have made news over the last year as a key stumbling block for providing basic services. The District’s 911 call center is routinely short-staffed, which has contributed to a number of disastrous, sometimes fatal errors. A shortage of caseworkers has slowed D.C.’s efforts to connect unhoused people with homes to a crawl, despite major federal money for housing vouchers, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.
Cabinet-level vacancies and high turnover within the Bowser administration have also made headlines in recent months, with the loss of Police Chief Robert J. Contee III and Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt, among others. High-profile departures have also included scandals: deputy mayor and chief of staff John Falcicchio resigned in March amidst sexual harassment claims, and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Christopher Geldart resigned last October after an assault charge revealed he likely lived outside of the District.
“One privilege that I have of longevity — I am currently in my ninth year being mayor — is really seeing how to grow leaders in the government,” Bowser said. “And I have a real focus on that, from the Cabinet level where I make appointments but also from the entry level.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/18/dc-bowser-hbcu-jobs-government/
In the early nineties I recommended to my supervisor that we recruit students from Howard for our finance related positions. That was before the DC TAG program was established. Now after doling out millions of dollars, providing hundreds of college students from DC up to $10,000 per year towards tuition assistance, Bowser chose to limit her recruitment effort to a limited number of graduates from Howard and UDC. For more than 20 years our DC TAG recipients have attended HBCUs and private schools all over the country. But instead of recruiting DC TAG graduates from all over and giving them, say a 5 point hiring preference like they do for job applicants who are DC residents (and which could bring in a lot more grads than 25 per year) this is the best idea Bowser could come up with as part of her DC “Comeback” program. Meanwhile, well connected white graduates are being hired in DC government and furthering the gentrification process that has these young white kids filling up apartment complexes newly built just for them. What sense does it make to invest millions of our tax paying dollars into DC TAG and not bother to hire our own? Our qualified DC TAG graduates are left to find jobs on their own and many of those jobs are not in DC. Such a poor return normally would be the death knell for an investment. But then again, we’re talking about the DC government.