It is obvious that those of us who live and breathe as citizens of the District of Columbia are used to a measure of issues in government oversight — for instance, today’s news that an auditor’s survey of five District government agencies uncovered nearly 700 unpaid fines totaling over $70,000 assessed to government vehicles. Nothing shocking, right? But here’s a legitimate question for anyone to ask: just who in the hell is responsible for the out and out financial mess that D.C. Public Schools currently finds themselves in? Someone’s got to take a fall for this one, right?

The answer is, sadly, going to take some time to uncover.

Let’s summarize: Michelle Rhee and the Washington Teachers Union came to an agreement on a long-negotiated labor deal two and a half weeks ago. A big part of that deal is a pay increase for teachers, which Rhee was going to partially cover with a $34 million surplus found in the DCPS budget. 266 teachers who were laid off in October 2009, then denied the chance to challenge the reduction in force in court, let out a collective WTF. District Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi then admonished Rhee for boasting of a surplus that doesn’t actually exist — which means Rhee is either woefully unaware of her agency’s financial status (not good) or was lied to by the Office of the CFO (even worse), while also potentially putting a serious dent in the agreement forged with the Union (incredibly troublesome).

Man, this is almost as complicated as Lost.

But at least it seems like somebody will now try to sort it out from a judicial perspective. D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff started asking some probing questions after deciding to reopen the WTU’s lawsuit which claimed that mass layoffs made by Rhee to save money last October were unjustified. (Hard to argue with that decision, since it’d be irresponsible to deny any claim considering on the lack of information that’s currently available.) But as Bill Turque reports, the city’s legal team is wiping the Chancellor’s hands clean of any wrongdoing in the case of the $34 million surplus:

Robert C. Utiger, a lawyer for the D.C. attorney general’s office…also said that even if financial projections were wrong, Rhee was not accountable, because the data were supplied by Gandhi’s office.

“She isn’t the one who crunches the numbers,” Utiger said. “She gets them from someone else.” He said the union was not entitled “to delve into whether or not the chancellor should have second-guessed the CFO.”