At the School Board Audit and Finance committee meeting on November 5, the Executive Director of Finance presented an analysis of the costs of central administration. The analysis shows that SPS Central Administration costs are 6% of the general fund budget - in line with other districts with more than 20,000 students and below the state average of 7%. In addition, central administration costs as a percentage of our budget have been relatively level over the past 10 years.

A recent analysis by a community member concluded, among other findings, that Central Administration costs were 8.1% of budget, or 2 percentage points higher than districts in Washington with enrollment of more than 20,000 students.

The Seattle Public Schools review determined that errors have been made by SPS in the coding of some job categories. These errors resulted in overstating the 2008-2009 central administration costs by $11.7 million; and overstating the number of supervisors by 29 positions. After adjusting the coding to the correct categories, SPS central administrative costs are 6%.

Moving forward, Seattle Public Schools will take several actions to ensure maximum transparency and ease of access for our community to district budgets and alignment with the way the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) codes and reports job positions. Actions include:

* New Superintendent's budget procedure
* Additional review of coding of job positions to ensure correct categories as defined by OSPI
* Expand the annual General Fund Budget book to provide additional information and analysis
* Participate in national survey designed to provide a consistent measure of administrative costs across districts. The survey is conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools (a collaboration of the 100 largest districts in the nation) and will be available in early 2010.