Stung by scandal and irregularities in one of the key agencies he was supposed to monitor, D.C. Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi is now “reviewing” his office’s relationship with the District’s public schools, his spokeswoman said.
“When that review is completed, if any comment is warranted, it will be made then,” finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young wrote in an e-mail to The Examiner.
Young has previously acknowledged that her office was essentially overruled in its efforts to stop questionable payments. A case in point is the scandal surrounding former charter school executive Brenda Belton. Belton is now the target of a grand jury investigation. Authorities want to know if she and her friends pocketed hundreds of thousands of public dollars. School sources said that Belton and the finance office clashed repeatedly over the money she was spending. As early as February, Belton accused the finance office of breaking the law by denying her requests for payments, according to the sources.
Yet, in May, a memo from board Vice President Carolyn Graham apparently was enough to overcome finance office objections. This was two months after a whistle-blower came forward to accuse Belton of wrongdoing and one month after District Council Member Kathy Patterson sent a confidential letter to Gandhi warning him about Belton’s office.
Worried about the incident, Patterson sent another letter to Gandhi last month. It asks him to justify his office’s conduct. “Do you share my concern and are you taking any action with regard to the authorization of payments?” the letter states. There are also questions over payments made to reimburse Superintendent Clifford Janey for meals. The payments came from an investment fund that was earmarked for students, a source has said.
Patterson said she has asked the D.C. Inspector General’s Office to examine all the city’s investment funds in its annual audit.
