By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GOVERNORS ISLAND — The Seaport Museum New York is stiffing high school students out of thousands of dollars in stipends, sources told DNAinfo this week.
The museum stopped paying the 30 New York Harbor School students in November and now owes many of them hundreds of dollars, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The students participate in a twice-a-week after-school program called Marine Masters, which offers homework help and maritime enrichment activities. The Seaport Museum helps lead the program, and the students are supposed to receive a monthly stipend of about $100 for participating, sources and students said.
Devin Mojica, 16, was counting on the stipend to help him pay for an upcoming scuba diving trip.
"It's really frustrating," said Mojica, a Brooklyn resident. "You're promised something and it doesn't come through."
Alimot Yusuff, 16, also from Brooklyn, agreed.
"They're using us," she said. "We make sure we come — it's only fair you pay us what you promised."
The Harbor School, which moved to a new building on Governors Island last fall, serves mostly students from low-income families in Brooklyn.
After inquiries from DNAinfo on Friday, the Seaport Museum released a statement saying the students would be paid soon.
"The museum has processed checks for the remaining 2010 stipend payments due to participants in the New York Harbor School Marine Masters program, and the students will receive those payments next week," a museum spokesman said in an e-mail. "They will receive stipend payments for their January class work in several weeks, according to the usual payment schedule."
The Seaport Museum has been struggling with mounting financial problems and last week laid off at least five employees.
It was not immediately clear how much money is owed to the students, but one source said it was about $7,000 in total and another said each student is owed several hundred dollars.
One source said the city Department of Youth and Community Development covers the cost of the Marine Masters program and will reimburse the Seaport Museum once the museum pays the students. However, the museum hasn’t written checks to the students since October, sources said.
Nathan Dudley, principal of the New York Harbor School, said only, "The Harbor School is working to resolve the situation the best we can."
A Department of Youth and Community Development spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
