District 67 Board / budget material
Example of how Administration is presented in district-facing public financial material.
Exact source page to be linked after page-level verificationAdministration · FY2024 to 25
How much are we really spending on Administration?
Lake Forest School Districts 67 and 115 tell the public that they spent about $2.2 million on Administration in Fiscal Year 2024-25. But that figure reflects a relatively narrow accounting definition of what counts as Administration.
Parents Care’s fiscal-forensic analysis asks a broader, more practical question: what does it actually cost to lead, manage and administer the school system? Using that approach, we identify approximately $5.4 million in Central Administration costs. When school-level administration, including principals, assistant principals, deans and related administrative functions, is included, the total rises to approximately $9.7 million.
Administrative spending competes with classroom instruction and other student-facing priorities for limited school resources. Parents Care believes taxpayers, parents and students should be able to see the broader cost of administration clearly when evaluating how local school dollars are being used.
FY2024 to 25 · Combined
Snapshot above · Montgomery-era trend below
Administration spending by definition
Every bar shares one dollar axis. Start with the figure the districts present as Administration, then compare it directly with the broader Central and Total Administration measures.
How the districts present Administration spendingIllinois reporting categories used in public budget materials
Comprehensive Administration SpendingSchool bar: D67 = solid · D115 = hatched
Evidence behind the district-presented figure
Where the districts present Administration to the public
The public-presentation sources and the Illinois reporting basis serve different purposes. Keeping them separate makes that distinction visible instead of burying it in a footnote.
Public presentation
District 115 Board / budget material
Example of how Administration is presented in district-facing public financial material.
Exact source page to be linked after page-level verificationBottom Line can be added here if the spending-specific Administration presentation is verified at the page level. Its staffing treatment is already documented separately.
Reporting basis
Illinois / ISBE reporting framework
The state-defined accounting categories that underlie the district-presented Administration figure.
Exact source or screenshot to be linked after verification
Start with the Illinois reporting categories behind the district-presented figure, then compare them with the broader Administration categories below.
Administrative Spending the Districts Report to the Public
Comprehensive Administration Spending
So what does the $2.2 million leave out?
The $2.2 million Administration figure is built from Illinois reporting categories and is the figure the districts use in public budget materials to describe Administration spending. Those categories leave out millions of dollars in central-office and school-level management functions that many residents would ordinarily consider administrative costs.
The state requires the reporting framework. Using that narrow figure to describe Administration to the public without clearly explaining what it leaves out is a separate presentation choice. Parents Care's concern is that this can leave taxpayers with a materially incomplete picture of the administrative footprint.
The $2.2 million figure itself is not necessarily wrong. It answers a narrower question. The issue is what a reader may reasonably understand it to represent when the broader context is absent.
Draw the line yourself
What counts as Administration? YOU decide.
Here are real types of school district spending. For each one, decide whether YOU think it should count as an Administration expense. After you answer, we will show whether the districts include it in the Administration figure they present to the public, how Parents Care classifies it, and why.
1 of 8
No score. The point is to see where YOU draw the line.
Category 1
Executive Office Support
Staff who support the superintendent and other top district administrators.
$231,742 in FY2024-25
YOUR answer
Yes
Do the districts include this in the Administration figure they present to the public?
Not shown as a separate Administration category
How Parents Care classifies it
Yes. Central Administration.
Why Parents Care classifies it this way
The line YOU drew
YOU just drew your own line around what counts as Administration.
There is no score. Some calls are easy and some are not. The important part is knowing what a number includes before using it to describe the cost of Administration.
One important limit: we know the districts’ combined $2.2 million Administration total. But the public records do not show exactly where every employee and every cost fits inside the state reporting categories. When the records do not let us match a quiz item exactly, we say that plainly.
Want to see how the $9.7 million total is divided between D67, D115, and Shared Services?
This is the reconciliation behind the combined total. It is useful if you want to audit how shared costs are handled, but you do not need it to follow the main story.
Where the FY2024-25 practical Administration cost sits
See the Shared Services organization →
District attribution and Shared Services organizational origin are separate concepts. The amounts below reconcile the current practical floor without adding Shared Services twice.
District 67 scope
$4.142M
Central $2.213M · School $1.928M
District 115 scope
$4.731M
Central $2.368M · School $2.363M
Shared Services held scope
$0.782M
Costs not currently assigned to D67 or D115. Counted once in Combined.
Combined practical Administration
$9.655M
Same controlled FY2024-25 practical floor shown throughout this page.
$4.142M + $4.731M + $0.782M = $9.655M rounded display; underlying reconciliation is exact
Do not add every Shared Services-origin dollar again. About $2.950M of additional FY2024-25 Shared Services-origin personnel cost is already embedded in the D67 and D115 scopes under the current controlled allocation layer. Matter L may refine provisional district splits when actual allocation records arrive.
Trend analysis · FY2021-22 to FY2024-25
Compare Administration spending over the period you choose.
Switch between Combined, District 67 and District 115. Then choose a baseline year and a later measure year. The dollar chart, change calculations and indexed-growth chart all update from the same selections.
Combined is the default view. Shared Services is counted once. Hollow points mark values that carry a provisional evidence or allocation state in the underlying reconstruction.
Administration spending · dollars
Fixed vertical scale of $0 to $10 million so switching scope does not exaggerate smaller totals.
Baseline sets the starting point. Measure must be at least one fiscal year later.
Provisional point
Shaded area = selected comparison period
Selected-period change is labeled directly on the chart at the measure-year endpoint.
Indexed growth · baseline year = 100
Each visible series starts at 100 in the baseline year, making relative growth directly comparable even when the dollar amounts are very different.
Zoomed index scale: the vertical axis tightens around the visible growth range so differences are easier to see. The 100 baseline remains fixed and visible. The dollar chart above still uses a true zero baseline.
How to read this: Total Administration equals Central plus School Administration. District-reported Administration is a separate statutory definition and should not be read as the same measure. Historical provisional states remain visible rather than being normalized away.
Continue exploring
Go from the annual total into the evidence.
This page now stays focused on spending. Staffing/FTE analysis lives in its own Administration branch.