WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Embattled D.C. schools’ Chief Financial Officer Pamela Graham has resigned, The Examiner has learned.

She will be replaced by Noah Wepman, an aide to city Administrator Dan Tangherlini, sources told The Examiner.

Graham was the top financial official for the schools for just under two years. She struggled to bring the $1 billion school system’s accounts under control.

Last summer, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee asked city Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi to replace Graham, sources said. Gandhi resisted, but sources say he finally relented late last week when his top deputies told him Graham wasn’t up to the job.

For more than a decade, Gandhi has fought efforts to loosen his grip on the schools’ failing finances. But he has been weakened by allegations that low-level employees in his tax office stole tens of millions of public dollars on his watch.

Neither Gandhi nor his spokeswoman, Karyn-Siobhan Robinson, responded to requests for comment.

The schools are facing a $100 million-plus budget deficit in fiscal 2008, according to an outside audit paid for by the city. Mayor Adrian Fenty has already reneged on a promise to cap his budget and asked the D.C. Council for an additional $81 million.

Graham was blamed for the most recent chaos in the schools’ budget. Last month, D.C. Council members, including Chairman Vincent C. Gray, pilloried Graham in a public hearing on the schools.

Graham met with Gandhi’s lieutenant Angell Jacobs on Friday and came back to tell her staff that she was leaving, the sources said.

Like most city agencies, the schools don’t control their own budget. Critics say the arrangement allows agencies to blame one another when things go badly.

“It’s an impossible position,” said Mary Levy, a schools and budget expert at the Washington Lawyers Committee. “You have to please both the superintendent and the city’s chief financial officer.”

Since 1996, at least 11 different people have served as schools’ CFO.

bmyers@dcexaminer.com

Comments from Examiner Readers

8:03 AM MST on Wed., Mar. 5, 2008 re: "Schools CFO Graham resigns"

Examiner Reader said:
Noah Wepman is the former finance manager of the DCPS Special Education Department/programs. Under his management the special Ed program ran deficits annually which forced DCPS to cut spending in school based programs. There is no way in HELL he has the financial knowledge to run DCPS. If DCPS special Ed was investigated you would see inappropriate use of federal grants and medicaid funds, mismanagement of local funds and other issues tied directly back to him. I agree with Mary Levy, the CFO position is a failed one in DCPS. however, so is the chancellor, the school board etc. Fenty has won this power play hook line and sinker.

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8:31 AM MST on Tue., Mar. 4, 2008 re: "Schools CFO Graham resigns"

Examiner Reader said:
Wow what a move! How is Michelle Rhee going to justify the next time Rhee is short of 7 million dollars? I guess now she will have an inside man to cover it up for her.

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8:16 AM MST on Tue., Mar. 4, 2008 re: "Schools CFO Graham resigns"

Examiner Reader said:
Pamela Graham is a Black woman. Is Noah Wepman Black? Fenty and Rhee seem to be getting rid of a lot of people of color.

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5:09 AM MST on Tue., Mar. 4, 2008 re: "District schools' CFO Graham resigns"

Examiner Reader said:
Why is Graham not being replaced by someone from the CFO's office? Why replace her with someone from the Mayor's office? "Why don't you investigate this appointment"?

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5:07 AM MST on Tue., Mar. 4, 2008 re: "Schools CFO Graham resigns"

Examiner Reader said:
Anyone watching this process play out could see this coming. Pam Graham's credentials are impeccable. Noah Wepman???? What are his credentials (other than being a yes man)? Wepman's credentials are nowhere close to those of Pam Graham. Isn't he the reason DCPS is in trouble with MEDICAID??? Boy or boy, things are getting worse by the minute. DCPS deserves everything it gets at this point.

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