Parting Blow: Official Questions AmeriCorps

[kskiska]

By Dana Milbank

In the latest blow to the beleaguered AmeriCorps national service program, the departing head of the organization under President Bush has raised questions about whether such a program should exist.

The comments by Leslie Lenkowsky, chief executive of AmeriCorps' parent, the Corporation for National and Community Service, provided ammunition to congressional critics, who are seeking to deny $100 million that it needs to prevent losses of 40 percent of its 50,000 slots for the year. Bush had called for increasing enrollment by 50 percent.

The remarks by Lenkowsky, who is leaving this month after a stormy tenure, were made in an interview with the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. The Journal quoted Lenkowsky calling AmeriCorps "another cumbersome, unpredictable government bureaucracy." The Journal said Lenkowsky asked: "Even if is well run, do we really need it? That's a good question."

(snip)

"There are literally programs closing every week now," Alan Khazei, chief executive of AmeriCorps participant City Year, said yesterday. Without new funds in the fall, he said, "10 years of work is going to go down the drain. We still have faith that the president still believes in this program and will come up with an answer."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10504-2003Jul31.html

[I AM SPARTACUS]

1. Lenkowsky - appointed by Bush, fostered accounting problems

http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/2629/2013472.html
from: Washington Post May 6, 2003, Page A19

<snip...>
There's no allegation here of any kind of misconduct. There's only concern about making certain that it is as efficient and effective as it can possibly be."

Asked about rumors circulating at the agency and on Capitol Hill that his job is on the line, Lenkowsky, who was appointed by President Bush, said: "I don't think it is. I've not heard anything from the White House to that effect. . . . Nobody goes to work in government forever, but I am at my job because I believe very strongly in the value of what we're doing here."

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees AmeriCorps, said: "We are cautiously optimistic that the corporation has finally gotten our message that these management problems are unacceptable and must be fully addressed in order to ensure that its programs are serving the interests of the communities, volunteers and the taxpayers."

Officials have routinely figured that some who sign up won't complete their service or, even if they do, won't seek an education grant, which does not have to be claimed for seven years.
<snip...more>