In the wake of a scathing audit that exposed widespread mishandling by city officials of federal grant dollars, key members of the D.C. Council said they wanted top-to-bottom reviews of public agencies.

Council member Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, said he’s asked the city auditor to review the child-welfare agencies he supervises because he suspects that officials are routinely ducking contracting laws by re-christening multimillion-dollar deals as “human service agreements.”

City law requires contracts to be approved by the council. Wells said the foster-care agency routinely sends out millions under the “agreements” without notify elected officials.

“I want to look at all their contracting processes,” Wells told The Examiner.

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Council member Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, has asked the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and other consumer-protection agencies to account for every dollar coming in and out of their coffers. “I want something even stronger than an audit,” Cheh said Monday.

Last week, the city finance office quietly released an excoriating audit on the way District bureaucrats handled some $1.8 billion in federal grants.

As first reported by The Examiner, the audit found that District officials routinely violated local and federal regulations on the grants – forking over payments without proper documentation, providing services to those who may not need them and moving funds around without regard to cash-management regulations.

Two areas of city government, the public schools and the Medicaid-reimbursement program, were so bad they threatened D.C.’s bond rating, auditors found.

The audit was slipped onto the finance office’s Web site as it was fending off inquiries into a massive public corruption scandal. Council member Phil Mendelson, D-at large, said the converging scandals make him and his colleagues “understandably nervous about how good our controls are.”

“It’s best that we do everything we can to get ahead of this problem,” Mendelson said. “A more comprehensive audit would bring that assurance.”

Mayor Adrian Fenty, who grabbed credit for bringing in a downsizing firm to give the stricken schools their first-ever, top-to-bottom review, has remained silent on the expanding scandals in the finance office. His spokeswoman, Carrie Brooks, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Got a tip on the city’s finances? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him an e-mail, bmyers@dcexaminer.com.