An audit that could have shed light on the inner workings of the D.C. tax office now under scrutiny was never completed even though it was required by law to be finished 19 months ago, The Washington Examiner has learned.

The D.C. Office of the Inspector General just awarded the contract for the audit last month, and it is scheduled to be finished at the end of September. The independent audit was called for two years ago, as part of the Real Property Assessments Improvement Act of 2010, which was inserted in the 2011 city budget. The act required the inspector general to contract with an outside firm to conduct an audit of the Office of Tax and Revenue “for the purposes of examining the District’s management and valuation of commercial real property assessments.”