camoor
12-21-2007, 01:00 PM
So D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi will have to continue to scrape through life on his $186,600 annual salary after Congress nixed his $92,400 pay raise this week, in response to the city's tax-office scandal.
Investigators, of course, are still trying to determine the full extent of the Harriette Walters-inspired malignancy. Not a week passes without investigators saying the scheme lasted longer and involved many more millions of dollars than originally thought.
And Mr. Gandhi failed to connect the dots. So did members of the D.C. Council, despite urgings from D.C. Auditor Deborah K. Nichols to study the property-tax revenue spigot after she noticed a conspicuous jump in the amount of money being refunded to property owners. A number of recipients turned out to be friends and acquaintances of Miss Walters.
Predictably enough, city lawmakers are disturbed by the scandal. Then again, they are always disturbed by one thing or another. One day, they are disturbed by the broken-down Department of Parks and Recreation. The next day, they are disturbed by national test results that show students from Mars score higher in English than D.C. public school students.
Now they are outraged over the taxpayer-funded shopping sprees of Miss Walters, whose lavish lifestyle on $81,000 a year failed to raise questions among co-workers and bosses. They apparently thought she had a prolific money tree growing in the back yard of her home. Or maybe they thought she was hitting the lottery every other month.
Whatever the case, it has subverted Mr. Gandhi's quality of life. He will have to dine on beans and water in the coming months after thinking his pay increase was a done deal...
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071220/METRO/367338194/1004
More in the article, it's a humorous read about the sad state of DC govt.
Also it's turning out that many people were involved in the DC tax scandal (9 by my last count and growing by the day)
Investigators, of course, are still trying to determine the full extent of the Harriette Walters-inspired malignancy. Not a week passes without investigators saying the scheme lasted longer and involved many more millions of dollars than originally thought.
And Mr. Gandhi failed to connect the dots. So did members of the D.C. Council, despite urgings from D.C. Auditor Deborah K. Nichols to study the property-tax revenue spigot after she noticed a conspicuous jump in the amount of money being refunded to property owners. A number of recipients turned out to be friends and acquaintances of Miss Walters.
Predictably enough, city lawmakers are disturbed by the scandal. Then again, they are always disturbed by one thing or another. One day, they are disturbed by the broken-down Department of Parks and Recreation. The next day, they are disturbed by national test results that show students from Mars score higher in English than D.C. public school students.
Now they are outraged over the taxpayer-funded shopping sprees of Miss Walters, whose lavish lifestyle on $81,000 a year failed to raise questions among co-workers and bosses. They apparently thought she had a prolific money tree growing in the back yard of her home. Or maybe they thought she was hitting the lottery every other month.
Whatever the case, it has subverted Mr. Gandhi's quality of life. He will have to dine on beans and water in the coming months after thinking his pay increase was a done deal...
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071220/METRO/367338194/1004
More in the article, it's a humorous read about the sad state of DC govt.
Also it's turning out that many people were involved in the DC tax scandal (9 by my last count and growing by the day)