WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Grim reviews from outside auditors and “gimmickry” in D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budget are posing a threat to the city’s fiscal independence, a D.C. Council member warned Tuesday.

“I’m not worried about Wall Street yet, but we’ve been told for years and years that we were climbing out of the morass,” Phil Mendelson, D-at large, told The Examiner. “But the auditors are saying it isn’t happening and there’s a lot of gimmicks in this year’s budgets. It’s beginning to resonate the same way it did 18 years ago, when D.C. was heading toward the control board.”

Mendelson was reacting to the city’s annual audit, which found glaring weaknesses in the city’s ability to account for and protect the public’s money. The worst-rated agencies were the city tax office — home to the largest public corruption scandal in city history — D.C.’s Medicaid program and the public schools. All three programs were labeled “material weaknesses,” a designation that threatens the city’s bond rating.

The schools and Medicaid were “material weaknesses” in last year’s audit.

In the mid-1990s, the bureaucracy’s shoddy financial system bankrupted D.C. and Congress imposed an unelected control board to rule the city.

Mendelson has been a consistent critic of the Fenty administration, which he has said is lurching from crisis to crisis, instead of carefully mapping out a reform strategy.

He said that Fenty’s promise not to raise taxes in this year’s budget is belied by a host of fee increases.

Others, like Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, say they’re still waiting to see whether Fenty’s promised reforms will have an effect.

Wells is a former Board of Education member but supported legislation that gave Fenty control of the $1 billion school system because he was “distressed” by the management under the old system.

Some reform advocates say they are willing to give Fenty time, but need reassurance their concerns are being taken into account.

“Parents just want to see local school budgets,” said Cherita Whiting, an advocate from Fenty’s native Ward 4. “You have to say that they’ve shut parents out of the process.”

bmyers@dcexaminer.com