D.C. government officials will launch an extensive audit of the city’s public schools today designed to pinpoint how the system is spending its $1 billion budget and identify areas of waste and mismanagement.
The audit, scheduled for announcement at a midday news conference, comes as Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) prepares to take control of the 55,000-student school system and is patterned after similar studies in other jurisdictions, including New York, St. Louis and New Orleans. But those studies have not always provided clear answers and, in some cases, resulted in new problems created by the auditors.