The organization the controversial Assistant Dean of Public Service Judith H. Kidd fiscally managed before coming to Harvard had significant cash flow problems, according to a published newspaper account.

City Year, a model national service program, has acknowledged it did not pay its bills in the first part of fiscal year 1996, shortly after Kidd left her post as the Acting Co-Chief Operating Officer (COO).

According to Kidd's resume, the Acting COO "is responsible for all operations of City Year, Inc. including finance and administration, fundraising, federal grants, strategic planning, and the Board of Directors."

Kidd assumed the position in 1994, after serving for two years as the Vice President for Development.

City Year is a non-profit organization that seeks to bring people aged 17 to 23 together from different ethnic and economic backgrounds to perform community service.

City Year and Kidd say that the U.S. government program responsi -ble for partially funding City Year did not pay on time, forcing City Year to be delinquent.

They say that the Corporation for National Service released the funds for the AmeriCorps programs six months behind schedule in January 1996.

They say it was this unanticipated delay, which affected half of City Year's $15 million operating budget, that rendered City Year unable to pay its vendors in full for that half year.

Kidd contends that as a growing non-profit in its seventh year, City Year was simply unable to maintain a cash reserve.

"A healthy organization should not be in the position where it doesn't have reserve credit to fall back on," said Kidd. "But City Year is a young, immature organization."

But business school professors said that growing businesses needed to anticipate these costs and plan for them.

"It would be imprudent for anyone running a small business not to consider the idea of running out of cash," said Amarnath V. Bhide, an associate professor of business administration.

The questions that have surfaced about Kidd at City Year concern PBHA leaders, although they seem confident that a summer agreement limits her powers.

The recent summer compromise between the College and PBHA created a new position of PBHA Executive Agent, reporting to the newly-created PBHA board on programmatic issues and to Kidd on issues of financial and administrative oversight.

"PBHA as a non-profit corporation has fiscal controls that depend only on its internal governance and accounting staff," said PBHA treasurer Roy E. Bahat '98. "Judith Kidd is not the first and final word on PBHA's fund management."

The recent controversy, reported by the Boston Globe on August 18, is only one of many surrounding Kidd since her appointment as Assistant Dean For Public Service by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68.