D.C. CFO Gandhi to resign

D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi is resigning after 13 years holding the post, he announced Friday.

Mr. Gandhi, 72, wrote in a letter to city officials that he will step down on June 1. A spokesman said his retirement is for purely personal reasons.

Mr. Gandhi was appointed to another five-year term in June and announced this week that the city accumulated a $417 million budget surplus last year, but his tenure has also included scandals involving alleged embezzlement by tax office employees and a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into allegations that the office withheld release of negative internal audits.

A tax office employee was arrested in 2007 and eventually convicted of embezzling nearly $50 million from the city, and another employee was charged last year with bilking the city out of $300,000.

A federal grand jury is also investigating the tax office’s handling of the city’s $38 million lottery contract

In a statement, D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray thanked Mr. Gandhi for his service and credited him with helping to build the city’s current $1.5 billion fund balance.

“Without his leadership, the District would not have experienced the extraordinary fiscal turnaround that we have seen in the last dozen years,” said Mr. Gray, a Democrat. “Our city owes him a great debt of gratitude.”

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