School Budgeting Practices In Chicago Are Questioned

By Daniel Gursky

The Chicago public schools' bureaucracy has engaged in a number of questionable budgeting practices, including hiring new central-office staff and increasing central-office salaries despite a freeze on hiring and promotions, a new report asserts.

In research findings made public late last month, Leadership for Quality Education, a Chicago school-reform and watchdog group, said it also found evidence of "phantom positions'' in local school budgets--jobs for people who left the school years ago or never even worked there.

As a whole, the report contends that the board of education understated the size of its central- and district-office staff and overstated the amount of...