District CFO Natwar Gandhi, aka The Golden Hammer, became a larger-than-life figure whose oracular pronouncements were accepted almost without question. One of his few critics – and the only District Council member who refused to reconfirm him – was David Catania, At-Large, who clashed with Gandhi over the baseball stadium and the recent Southeast Hospital deal. But Gandhi s previously untouchable aura has evaporated and other Council members are now privately admitting that they should have been more suspicious, too. They’re just waking up to the harsh reality that, with no safeguards or internal controls to prevent pilfering in any other city department, the tax refund scandal may not be the only one. One of the unasked and obviously unanswered questions at Thursday’s Council hearing was why the treasurer’s office cut bogus refund checks without a supervisor s signature. This scandal may run much deeper than anyone realized. Catania says he can t be sure that there haven’t been other diversions of public funds to dummy companies, especially after Gandhi admitted he never audited the two biggest pots of money the city collects, namely property taxes and individual income taxes. Even after being warned by the Council’s auditor, Gandhi left these revenue accounts wide-open to would-be embezzlers. Even so, Catania predicts, Gandhi will hang on to his job like a man overboard hangs on to a life vest. The Council will vote Tuesday to bring in outside professional help to assess the damage and finally force a citywide review of accounting practices. That shouldbe most interesting. If there s a silver lining, Catania says, this is it.
