Here's a headline: A management-level official in the Fenty administration is leaving his job without getting pushed!

After more than two years as D.C.'s city administrator, Dan Tangherlini is moving across Pershing Park, to a posting at the Treasury Department. There, he will be assistant secretary for management, chief financial officer, and chief performance officer under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

And despite gaining two titles, he's losing $50,000 in pay. Tangherlini made just north of $200,000 in his District job and will get around $150,000 from the feds.

In remarks presented with the entire mayoral cabinet gathered behind him on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building, Tangherlini expressed "a profound sense of gratitude" to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. He faces Senate confirmation proceedings before he can start his new job and said there will be a transition period before he hands over the operations of D.C. government to current Deputy Mayor Neil O. Albert.

Fenty estimated it'll be a "few weeks" before the transition is complete.

Following the announcement, Fenty said that Albert and Tangherlini are similar. "They're both doers. They both get things done....They've succeeded in every job they've had."

When asked what it meant to have one of his people selected for such a big job, Fenty replied, "Professionally, there's no greater compliment." He noted that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had key aides selected for top positions in the Obama administration. "It's just exhilirating, it really is," said Fenty.

Did Fenty plug Tangherlini in one of his candid chats with President Obama? No, says the mayor. The only call he received from anyone about Dan Tan was an FBI background check.

Original Post

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has scheduled a 3 p.m. press conference on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building to make a "Cabinet-level" personnel announcement.

This comes on the heels of news broken by Nikita Stewart at WaPo that Dan Tangherlini may be under consideration for a Obama administration job.

Stay tuned at City Desk for immediate updates.

UPDATE, 3 P.M.: Presser is yet to start, but WRC-TV's Tom Sherwood is reporting that Tangherlini is taking a job in the treasury department; Deputy Mayor Neil O. Albert will reportedly replace him as city administrator.

UPDATE, 3:20 P.M.: The entire Fenty cabinet is assembled. Everyone! Still no Fenty.

UPDATE, 3:25 P.M.: Tangherlini will be assistant secretary for management, chief financial officer, and chief performance officer at Treasury.

Photo By Darrow Montgomery/File

Not a lot of folks are getting good news from Wall Street these days, but the District got a little something nice today.

The Office of the Chief Financial Officer is announcing this evening that Standard & Poor's, one of three outfits that rate municipal debt, has given the District a "AAA" rating on a recent bond issue. That's S&P's top mark.

In a statement, CFO Natwar Gandhi calls it "a gilt-edged rating."

Now it's not quite accurate to say that the new rating represents a rise in the District's credit rating, since S&P is passing judgment on a new type of debt instrument, something called income-tax-secured revenue bonds only recently authorized by the D.C. Council. But according to City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, this bond issue is "practically the same as" and "will do the same work of" general-obligation bonds---whose ratings are most commonly cited when referring to the District's creditworthiness.

Read More "District Gets AAA Bond Rating" »

More on City Administrator Dan Tangherlini's budget powwows. Post lunch, the city's top day-to-day manager had three additional rounds of discussions with agency directors on money---first with the Office of Property Management (OPM). "We need to find savings everywhere we can," said Tangherlini to OPM Director Robin-Eve Jasper. "We're doing to look to you for a lot of help."

More than an hour later, the brass from the Fire and Emergency Medical Services agency arrived---Chief Dennis Rubin and two assistants, all of whom are gloriously mustachioed white guys. Dan Tan's message to Rubin: "What is the core mission and function? What are the things that protect lives? What are the things that we've inherited, longstanding practices that we can look at?"

Just before a reporter for Average Day got kicked out of the room, Rubin said, in describing possible savings, "We feel like there's somewhere between $3 and $5 million in auto accidents." Now, does figure encompass departmental vehicles? Don't know---we got the hook.

Dan Tan is now deep in a skull session with University of the District of Columbia executives, including new President Allen Sessoms.

By Mike DeBonis

More on the budget discussions of City Administrator Dan Tangherlini. After discussing money and baselines with city contracting managers, Dan Tan got into it with Stephanie Scott, who runs the all-important D.C. Office of the Secretary. Now, that title may suggest that this is some puffy, ceremonial office.

Suggestion incorrect: The Office of the Secretary is a revenue-producing appendage of the D.C. government. It pulls in cash from notary public registrations as well as from screening paperwork for foreign adoptions, among other functions.

All of which brings up Dan Tan's central query to Scott regarding the impact of the bad economic times on the office's intake. Specifically, the administrator wanted to know how its revenues were faring in the current fiscal year, which started on Oct. 1. Scott said she wasn't quite sure, didn't have those numbers.

The uncertainty prompted this quote---worthy of space on any manager's wall---from Dan Tan: "Optimism without data is really just an emotion."

After the meeting, Dan Tan went back to the mayoral bullpen for leftover tuna casserole, which he devoured while looking over documents for an upcoming hearing on the capital budget.

--By Mike DeBonis

More on the budget talks at the Wilson Building: Janis Quintana, director of the Office of Unified Communications, is feeling the budgetary heat from the District's top exex. But the agency is really, really struggling. In addition to handling all manner of 911 calls, her operation has been burdened with handling calls from other agencies, including the Department of Employment Services. And in this economy, the unemployment help line is no lunch break.

In light of all that, Quintana, moments ago, told City Administrator Dan Tangherlini: "We're so lean we're finding it hard to trim the fat."

To which the resourceful city administrator replied, "All the different phone equipment--there has to be some savings there?"

Reporting by Mike DeBonis

Late February at the John A. Wilson Building is a tough time to be a spreadsheet. That's because City Administrator Dan Tangherlini and his budget people are crunching the living daylights out of the District's numbers from early in the morning till late at night, trying to get a document that'll pass muster at the D.C. Council.

On this particular day, Tangherlini is doing the yeoman's job of agency budget reviews. Meaning that directors and top staff of the city's various departments are making the trek to the 5th floor CapStat room in the Wilson Building, the better to talk about something called the "baseline" with Dan Tan.

Earlier today, Dan Tan and his budget director, Will Singer, sat down with the people from D.C.'s Office of Contracting and Procurement. They allowed Loose Lips columnist Mike DeBonis to sit in for the opening (read: generic) comments. Singer said something trenchant: "This really is the most challenging budget year for the District since the control board...We've asked every agency to look deep inside the baseline for possible savings."

What on earth is a baseline? It's the amount of money needed to maintain the level of services offered in the past budget year. This year, the mayor's people ordered agencies to roll back the baseline. More with less, in other words.

Before the parties got into any real discussions, they kicked Loose Lips out of the room.

Reporting by Mike DeBonis