How big is the central office?
by Paul Socolar on May 23 2010 Posted in Eye on the budget
The size of the School District's central office appears to be pretty much of a moving target in recent budget documents.
A current breakdown from the District's budget book shows that the District's "administrative support functions" grew from $117 million in 2008-09 to $198 million in the current year, a surprising one-year increase of 70 percent (see p. 98). The same statement shows the full-time administrative staff growing from 896 positions in December 2007, pre-Ackerman, to 1135 today.
As recently as last November, however, a "budget in brief" document for this very year showed an administrative support budget that was $52 million smaller than the current figure - or only $146 million. According to that version, administrative expenses were up from $128 million in 2008-09 - only a 14 percent increase.
How do we explain these wildly different figures? How did we get from $117 million to $198 million in one year? Is money is being shifted from schools to central office?
The District has not made budget officials available to the Notebook for an interview on the subject.
What makes these comparisons difficult is that definitions change about what is included in "administrative support operations." Recategorization of certain expenditures and staff positions could account for much of the change. It looks like since last November, that happened with the Office of Specialized Services to the
