Harry Jaffe, The Examiner
2007-11-05 23:33:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

Washington DC -

Tomorrow night, Natwar Gandhi, the District's unbending bean counter for the past decade, will be honored by Governing Magazine as one of the year's top public officials. He will share the rarefied air with Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, L.A. Police Chief Bill Bratton and Houston Mayor Bill White.

"Fiscal Guardian," the magazine calls Gandhi.

Some D.C. pols and bureaucrats prefer less flattering titles. "Chief Fictional Officer," is Council Member David Catania's line for Gandhi. Some of Mayor Adrian Fenty's young department heads grouse that Gandhi is a tightwad. Most would agree he can be conservative to a fault in dispensing public funds.

As it should be. Gandhi's job is to guard the District's dough; everyone else can whine and complain at will. Guided by a law that says he must balance the District's budget every year, Gandhi wears my preferred moniker - Dr. No.

Say what they will about Gandhi, who served as head of D.C.'s tax and revenue department in 1997 until he took over as CFO in 2000, numbers speak loudest. When he showed up, D.C. was $500 million in the hole; financial records were strewn across floors and file cabinets. Now the District has a fund balance of $1.5 billion. While our neighbors in Maryland and Virginia run deficits and cut programs, Gandhi recently announced a $100 million surplus for DC.

How come?

"Our economy is very sound," Gandhi told me. "Our real property market is still strong. And there's the fiscal discipline we observe here."

What has Gandhi learned?

"We have to be eternally vigilant about the city's finances. We are a fiscally fragile jurisdiction with a limited tax base. We are at the mercy of the federal government. Our population is very needy."

Like more than a few politicians.

Some expect Gandhi to delve into the depths of the city's spending to guard against malfeasance, for instance, within D.C. Public Schools. Says Gandhi, "If I am presented with a bill, I have to pay it, even if the money is spent unwisely."

What Gandhi can do is bless or denounce deals that involve District funds. Like bonds to build the new baseball stadium, which he approved. Or the loan to keep a Southeast hospital running, which made him raise red flags.

Gandhi's nemesis, David Catania, raged like a bull at the red flag. Dedicated and hardworking, Catania can rightly claim to be the city's chief advocate for protecting public health. In that role, he rammed through a deal that gave $80 million to Specialty Hospitals of America, a company that would take over and operate the troubled Greater Southeast Community Hospital.

When Gandhi found the company had no audited financial statements and warned against the $80 million expenditure in early October, Catania went nuclear and threatened to blame Gandhi if the deal fell through. Weeks later, the council approved the transaction, which already reeks like a rotten fish.

Gandhi did his job. But the politics of keeping a hospital afloat in D.C.'s neediest neighborhood prevailed. Now all the Fiscal Guardian can do is write the check - and wait to say he told them so.

hjaffe@washingtonian.com