by Jonah Goodman
Guest Contributor

In recent Advisory Neighborhood Commissions oversight hearing documents, the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (OANC) notified the DC Council that Petworth’s ANC 4C was denied $18,540 in funding allotment for FY 2024 (October 2023-September 2024) (page 24):

“It is worth noting that ANC 4C lost its entire FY24 allotment of $18,540.96 as a result of failing to submit an approved budget, meeting minutes, and timely Quarterly Financial Reports in addition to technical errors such as issuing checks with only one signature. The OANC engaged the ANC for months and offered assistance to no avail.”

ANC 4C was the only Commission, out of 46 across DC, with these violations.

So how did this happen?

The OANC report to the Council highlights that during 2024, ANC 4C did not submit a budget, meeting minutes or quarterly financial reports (QFR), and lacked the required two signatures of the ANC’s officers on checks. All of these requirements are in place as financial controls and public transparency to ensure money isn’t mispent or stolen, a situation that sadly has been an issue in some other ANCs across the District in prior years.

I reached out to former Commissioners Livingston (Chair 2024), Defranco (Treasurer 2024), and Kirby (Secretary 2024), as well as Commissioners Warburton (Chair 2025) and Heller (Treasurer 2025) for comments and help in understanding what happened.

Two themes emerged in talking with Commissioners Livingston and Defranco. First, ANC 4C didn’t implement some oversight practices that would have prevented things from getting to this point. When the individual Commission officers became busy, things started slipping through the cracks and there didn’t seem to be any reviews to confirm each officer was completing their work.

Second, OANC staff were regularly attending 4C meetings or in communication with 4C and would have been aware that 4C was addressing most, if not all, of the issues. The OANC acknowledged several of the requirements 4C were missing, were difficult to implement or didn’t provide the adequate protections. Multiple ANC Commissions across the District have shared in OANC oversight hearings before the DC Council there are challenges working with the OANC and with overly complicated financial reporting.

Nonetheless, all of this could have been avoided.

The good news is the current ANC 4C Commission appears to be taking meaningful steps to rectify this situation. In particular, Commissioner Heller has stepped up to serve as Treasurer and try to untangle this mess.

Commissioner Warburton, the current Chair, shared that OANC put together a timeline of what was missing and how ANC 4C could resolve the outstanding items. OANC notes the Q3 and Q4 2024 financial items were received. This includes the QFRs, bank statements and canceled checks. What was still missing as of February 2025 were the minutes from 2024 confirming grants, expenses, budgets and QFR reports approved by the full Commission.

Commissioner Defranco acknowledged some of the QFRs were delayed but that the delays were communicated with OANC. Defranco states that the OANC never informed 4C that they would withhold funding.

There is a large grace period for filing QFRs, so delays often don’t have any penalties unless they go beyond the following quarter. Defranco pushed back on the OANC on the issue with the checks:

“While there was an issue with single-signature checks, we voted to resolve that issue in accordance with instructions from OANC, who promised to deliver a document to us to resolve this issue and then never did. Director [Kent] Boese personally acknowledged to me that OANC recognized that the multi-signer requirement was unreasonable and had not been appropriately promulgated to commissioners, and informed me that OANC would be waiving the oversight.”

OANC notes the QFRs were all eventually received but minutes confirming their approval were missing. As of the beginning of March 2025, the ANC 4C website only showed two sets of minutes for all of 2024.

I reached out to Commissioner Kirby who served as Secretary in 2024 to ask about why they are missing. The only response I received was: “As the only remaining officer from that administration, what I will say is that I am still in close contact with Director Boese concerning the matter.”

I followed up in late February asking if he could point me to where the public could see the minutes from 2024 and didn’t receive a response.

The OANC had given ANC 4C a deadline of March 15, 2025 to provide the missing minutes in order to receive their 2025 allotments. During ANC 4C’s March 12, 2025 meeting the agenda shows that the ANC was voting to approve all the missing 2024 minutes.

While ANC 4C appears likely to receive the paused 2025 allotments (Q1 2025 started October 2024), they will not be able to recover any of the FY 2024 allotments.

What does that mean for Petworth and the 4C community?

The DC Council provides funds for each ANC through a quarterly allotment process, evenly distributing funding across ANCs based on the number of Single Member Districts in each Commission. Each Commission can decide how to use their funds but sometimes the regulations can be very restrictive. Historically, ANC 4C has used some of their allotment to pay for an administrative assistant, a PO box and utilities at an office space. Commissions can also use their funding to distribute grants within the general Commission area.

Grants have previously been given to the Petworth and Kennedy Street Farmers markets to support their SNAP discounts, Petworth Blooms to support their work in local parks, Friends of the Soldiers Home for their various festivals and the Roosevelt High School newspaper.

Often, ANC 4C did not have enough expenses to spend down the full allotment, which would roll over each year and therefore was in a decent state financially. I confirmed with some of the officers from last term that ANC 4C had more funds than they were spending and missing the 2024 allotment likely didn't impact how the ANC functioned. But it is money the Commission could have spent locally for community benefits through the grant program. This is money coming from DC taxes that should be staying within Petworth but will now be distributed elsewhere.

What should 4C do going forward?

There are some process improvements 4C should consider doing:

The Commission, officers and non-officers, should collectively review each QFR to ensure it correctly captures the financial statements. During this process the Commission could review canceled checks to ensure they had the necessary two co-signers.
There should be a process for officers responsible for submitting documents to DC have properly completed them. When these documents are submitted via email, then requiring the full Commission is cc’d would be an easy additional step.
The Commission could add a section to each month’s meeting agenda confirming if items approved in the previous month were properly submitted.
If any officers are regularly delinquent in performing their tasks, then the Commission should consider outlining in the Bylaws new redundancy plans to allow other Commissioners to be authorized to complete the necessary items. If it is a prolonged delinquency, the Commission should consider replacing the officer before the end of their annual term. This would not remove the Commissioner from the ANC, it would just remove them as Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary or Treasurer.
Sharing testimony with the DC Council Committee on Housing, which has oversight of OANC, related to issues with OANC guidance, financial controls, and processes particularly if email documents tell a different story than what OANC provided to the DC Council.

You can find ANC 4C’s meeting schedule and any documents they make public on their website.