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Despite audit, control board remains

(Published February 12, 2001)

City officials cheered loudly Jan. 29, declaring the presidentially appointed financial control board dead as Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi unveiled the fiscal 2000 audit confirming the District’s fourth consecutive balanced budget.

But the control board isn’t gone. Not yet.

"We’re working on a number of reports we plan to leave behind," said the board’s executive director, Francis Smith, commenting on what the staff and board will do until the end of the current fiscal year. While federal legislation that created the control board says it becomes dormant after a fourth balanced budget and clean audit, the law says that happens at the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30.

Smith mentioned welfare reform, procurement and health care among the control board’s continuing concerns.

Copyright © 2001 The Common Denominator