Bio
Linda Pantages is that rare individual who combines a genuine passion for social welfare, an accountant’s sharp eye for numbers, and a commitment to making government work. Pantages is the Director of Payments for the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), a city agency that provides funding to 1300 community-based organizations (CBOs) to provide services for children, youth and families in a wide range of areas. Prompt, efficient, well-timed payment is often a matter of stability or survival for the community-based organizations that get funding through the DYCD. Over her more than three decades of dedicated service to the DYCD, Pantages has been consistently praised by co-workers and CBOs alike for her professionalism, her objectivity,her encyclopedic knowledge of government accounting rules, and her willingness to help. Faced with a complex maze of regulations and procedures that must be successfully navigated to ensure payment on a government contract, CBOs turn to Pantages to help them navigate the process so they can focus on what’s important: helping the community. “Linda makes what we do possible”, says one CBO staffer. Pantages is constantly striving to improve the services DYCD provides to the CBOs it contracts with. She oversaw the transition of the DYCD’s contracts and payments process from a paper-based system to a fully electronic one, developed a standardized comprehensive set of payment protocols, and spearheaded the creation of a help desk that receives 4,000 calls per year. Says one CBO officer, “We refer to Linda, without exaggeration, as the miracle worker.”
