Natwar Gandhi, the District’s chief financial officer since 2000, announced Friday that he will resign as of June 1, just days after he presented city officials with a $417 million budget surplus. CFO spokesman David Umansky claims his boss is leaving for “purely personal reasons.” But a growing list of scandals in the CFO’s Office has badly tarnished the meticulously cultivated reputation of the man at times referred to as the “embodiment of fiscal rectitude.”

Citing “a highly placed government source” in the John A. Wilson Building, Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras accurately predicted Gandhi’s departure a week before his announcement, which suggests there is more to this than meets the eye. The CFO is appointed by the mayor and cannot be fired except for cause, so Gandhi’s supposedly voluntary departure will spare Mayor Vincent Gray the embarrassment of forcing somebody out less than six months after reappointing him to a third five-year term.