Matters ▸ Attachment
CTE Youth Dev. — File 202316
Center for Teen Empowerment Youth Development Contract
This contract is a renewal of a $100,000 contract that funds Teen Empowerment’s core youth
organizing program in Somerville. The program employs 30 Somerville teens each year to plan
and implement initiatives that involve over 800 Somerville youth and adults in community
improvement efforts including, but no limited to, the annual Somerville Youth Peace
Conference, youth‐police dialogue sessions, monthly teen open mic nights, meetings with public
officials, safe social events for youth, intergenerational programming with Council on Aging
participants, etc.
Total cost of the program is $239,000. In addition to this contract, it is funded by Somerville
CDBG ($60,000), Shannon Community Safety Initiative (EOPSS through MAPC‐‐$15,000), private
donations and foundation grants. It is inconceivable that CTE would spend less than the
$175,000 already raised explicitly for this program from CDBG, Shannon and this contract. No
funding whatsoever from CTE’s other contract with the City is expended on this program.
The contract is slated to have started July 1 but it was just received by CTE last Thursday. CTE
has been operating the program without a contract for almost 4 months.
The contract, for the first time, contains a clause that is not standard in all Somerville contracts
and was requested by Doug Kress to be specifically added for the first time this year to this
contract. The clause reads:
The Vendor shall periodically submit invoices to the City, for which compensation is due under this
Contract and requesting payment for goods received or services rendered by the Vendor during the
period covered by the invoice. The invoice must agree to the rates/payment schedule as indicated in this
contract and must include the applicable Purchase Order number. The invoice shall include the
following information: vendor name, vendor remit address, invoice date, invoice number, itemized
listing of goods, services, labor, and expenses and indicating the total amount due.
Previous contracts were billed and paid quarterly based solely on CTE’s delivering on the
contracted deliverables ($25,000 per quarter if quarterly report sufficiently documented
progress toward stated outcomes and outputs). This is also how the CDBG contract for this
program works.
Because we have already allocated salaries to the other grant contracts, CTE will have to charge
many other small expenses (snacks, office supplies, program supplies, sound, costumes and
props, youth stipends, training, travel, administration, evaluation, etc.) to this contract. This will
create a large burden of tracking and verifying hard copies of all receipts for all expenses both
for CTE and City employees. It will also take away the predictability of payment amounts for
both entities. The unpredictability of costs of youth employees who work hourly further
compounds the problem.