Lens 2 · District-defined staffing
District-budgeted Administrator positions
FY2021–22 and FY2024–25 use historical district staffing records. See source notes below.
PARENTS CARE INVESTIGATION · LAKE FOREST SCHOOLS
How our schools spend money reveals what they prioritize.
Schools need effective administration. But taxpayers also deserve to know what managing our schools costs, how it is changing, and whether those expenses reflect the right priorities for students.
For FY2024–25, Parents Care reconstructed administration spending using district financial records and documented estimates. We show three overlapping ways of measuring it, so readers can see what the narrower official definition leaves out. The underlying sources and assumptions are available below.
01 / FOLLOW THE MONEY
So, How Much Do Our Schools Spend on Administration? It Depends on How You Count Administration.
You might expect a straightforward answer to this question. But the amount our schools spend on Administration depends on what gets counted, and what gets left out.
Districts 67 and 115 publish an Administration spending figure as required by Illinois. But that figure captures only a narrow portion of what it costs to manage our schools. The districts also publicly identify employees they consider administrators, yet they don't publish a comprehensive accounting of what it costs to employ those people and support their work.
We examine that question through three lenses:
Lens 1: What Districts Report to Illinois. Administration spending under state accounting rules.
Lens 2: What Districts Identify as Administration. Our calculation of the personnel and operating costs of district-identified administrators.
Lens 3: Parents Care Reconstructed Costs. A broader measure of administrative spending based on the work performed.
These lenses overlap. They are three ways of measuring the same system, not amounts to add together.
Parents Care set out to answer a simple question: What does it really cost to administer our schools?
Three lenses on administrative spendingSelect a bar to examine its costs. The amounts overlap and should not be added together.
Fiscal year
FY2024–25
District view
EXPLORE THE DETAILS
Where, exactly, is the money going?
Open spending categories to see which functions and costs make up the totals.
Choose a measure aboveCategory detail follows the measure you are exploring.
Choose a measure · tap to switch:
What does Illinois require the districts to report?
Illinois uses a narrower Administration definition. The official reporting figure does not capture every cost of managing the districts.
$0$2.5M$5M$7.5M$10M
What do district-identified administrators cost?
This measure includes compensation and related support costs for administrators the districts identify in staffing and budget materials. The districts do not publish this combined amount.
$0$2.5M$5M$7.5M$10M
What does Parents Care count as administration?
This broader reconstruction follows the purpose of the work. It includes qualifying administrative staff and services even when reported under other job titles or budget categories.
$0$2.5M$5M$7.5M$10M
Historical research model · Dollar trends include documented estimates. Review evidence and limitations.
02 / SPENDING AND STAFFING TRENDS
Historical spending · Combined
How spending and staffing have changed
View
Select a baseline and comparison year to explore the historical spending estimates.
Choose years to compare across all three charts
Administration spending · dollars
Nominal dollars. Earlier years are reconstructed using district records and documented estimates; FY2024–25 is the controlled baseline.
Lens 1 · Districts Report to IllinoisLens 3 · Parents Care Reconstructed Costs
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY · STAFFING
How has administrative staffing changed?
An FTE represents one full-time position. Select a chart point to inspect its source.
Each chart uses its own focused scale. Choose Full scale to start both axes at zero.
Compare staffing for these years
Swipe inside each chart for more years.
Lens 3 · Parents Care staffing
Occupied administrative workforce, including support
FY2023–24 has no observed roster count and is shown as a gap in the line. Earlier history is available below.
Default: FY2021–22 through FY2024–25.
Data sources and reporting differences
Lens 2 district staffing: The gold line counts the districts’ own Administrator categories using the fiscal-year source priority established for Lens 2 spending. FY2024–25 follows the period rosters (34.90 combined FTE), rather than the later FAQ figure (33.90). FY2021–22 is reconstructed from the district period records as 33.40 combined budgeted Administrator FTE: 14.00 in D67 and 19.40 in D115. D67 includes one 1.00 FTE budgeted administrator vacancy, consistent with the later period-roster counting convention. FY2025–26 is intentionally excluded from this four-year presentation until spending and staffing are updated together. The partial state research sample is not shown.
Explore the people and sources behind each staffing point
Parents Care administration · FY2024–25
Reconciled final-year staffing roster
80.50 FTE
Scope note: Lens 2 staffing counts district-budgeted Administrator positions, including documented vacancies. Lens 3 counts occupied administrative work and qualifying support. These different populations should not be compared as missing employees or converted into spending-per-FTE ratios.
How we count FTE, and why some years are missing
For Parents Care, the September 26 historical roster was classified by primary administrative economic purpose. This is different from the districts’ own Administrator categories. Its mapping to the current FY2024–25 Parents Care spending population has not yet passed the full person-cost crosswalk. The series counts the final state of each fiscal year's occupied administrative staffing roster, including dedicated administrative support. Shared Services employees count once in the combined view; their district service shares are allocated separately. A reported administrative share of a mixed teaching role is counted rather than the person's whole employment contract. Vacancies and unresolved candidates are excluded from the main figure. The district did not supply the final FY2023–24 administrative staffing roster, so Parents Care reconstructed that year from other personnel records. Its district split is also estimated from adjacent-year role allocations. Each modeled point is identified in its chart details.
State research observations show a selected set of state-coded administrative positions, not the official state Administration spending population. District research observations come from differently documented staffing references and have not yet passed cross-year definition reconciliation. These series must not be interpreted as matched staffing-to-spending ratios or assumed to reconcile to the financial dollar totals.
Historical evidence and source limitations
Earlier years are reconstructed using available records. Some early personnel costs and classifications remain unresolved. Open the research details for the figures, sources and assumptions.
View historical assumptions and year-by-year source notes
| Fiscal year | Parents Care model | Status | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2021–22 | $7,505,422.49 | Provisional reconstruction; incomplete employee coverage | Includes a $25,105.23 reported Other Benefits treatment. The prior-version $15,705.47 bridge is not independently recovered; material overlap/comparability questions remain. |
| FY2022–23 | $8,481,113.25 | Estimate with identified personnel proxy | Contains a $111,690 Duval carryback proxy not authorized as actual expenditure. It remains sensitivity-only until specifically approved. |
| FY2023–24 | $8,935,656.35 | Reconstructed estimate; historical completeness hold | The October 14 historical comparison documented $8,903,927.38 on an earlier scenario. The $31,728.97 difference was traced in the October 16 series reconstruction and counted once. This does not confer public-release approval on the year. |
| FY2024–25 | $9,657,082.89 | Controlled Lens III spending reconstruction | Latest controlled FY2024–25 comparison; unresolved components mean the figure must not be described as audited complete employer spending. |
The complete research record identifies remaining gaps; unknown amounts are not silently counted as zero. The districts and community members can help resolve outstanding questions by sharing the underlying records. This private preview does not authorize public deployment.
Parents Care reconstructed this four-year picture from available district records and documented estimates. Explore our methodology · Help strengthen the evidence.
04 / WHY ADMIN SPENDING MATTERS
What should our school spending priorities be?
Strong schools need capable administrators, teachers and student services. Understanding where school dollars go helps families ask informed questions about priorities and results.
What are we choosing to fund?
Teachers, classroom support, student programs and Administration all compete for limited resources. Understanding the full administrative cost helps families judge those tradeoffs.
What's behind the growth?
More administrators? Higher compensation? More consultants or operating expenses? Rising costs deserve clear explanations from the people approving the budgets.
Are taxpayers getting value?
Spending more is not automatically spending better. The question is whether growth in Administration is delivering better results for students and schools.
Decide for yourself.Use the spending categories, trends, and individual compensation profiles to explore where the money goes.
Explore the spending
Better data. Stronger accountability.
Help us make this investigation even stronger.
We stand behind this good-faith reconstruction. But complete public records make stronger findings, and anyone with relevant evidence can help. We will review documented corrections and explain material changes.
Found a figure or source we should review?
Send the fiscal year, the amount or statement in question, and a link or copy of the record supporting your correction. Evidence is welcome from residents, employees, and the districts themselves.
Report a correction ↗Help uncover the missing public records.
Illinois FOIA allows residents to request existing financial records from Districts 67 and 115. Prepare a request, send it yourself, then share any responsive documents with Parents Care.
Prepare a public records request
Choose a district. We will fill in the correct published FOIA Officer address and a starter request for existing records. You can edit it before sending. This dashboard does not send requests.
You decide whether to send. Request only existing public records, respect lawful privacy redactions, and review scope before sending. To share a FOIA response with Parents Care, email info@parentscare.org or use the correction link above.
How we calculated the figures
Our research methods and primary sources are available here for anyone who wants to look behind the numbers.
Definitions, source records and methodologyDefinitions, sources, and important limitations for readers who want the detail
How Parents Care investigated the question. We examined district budgets, financial reports, administrative staffing information, employment contracts, compensation records, and other spending records. We then reconstructed Administration spending three ways: what the districts officially report to Illinois, what it costs to employ and support the administrators the districts themselves identify, and what our schools spend on work and expenses that serve an administrative purpose, regardless of job titles or accounting classifications.
Lens 1 · What Districts Report to Illinois: The only overall Administration spending total the districts publicly report. Illinois rules require it, but it does not include many expenses involved in running the system.
Lens 2 · What the Districts Identify as Administration: The districts identify administrators in The Bottom Line and budget presentations. Parents Care reconstructs compensation, supported employer costs, and qualifying office operating expenses for that district-listed administrator footprint. This is not a district-published cost total and does not include the compensation of employees outside the listed footprint solely because their work supports administration.
Lens 3 · Parents Care Reconstructed Costs: We count the cost of work that helps run the school system, regardless of employees' job titles or where expenses appear in official reports. The figures are reconstructed from source records using documented rules.
Do not add these figures together. They are alternative measurements of overlapping spending. Shared Services expenditures are counted once in the combined reconstruction; reimbursements between the districts are transfers, not additional combined expenses. District allocation can differ from the district that originally issued payment. These figures are reconstructed, not a transaction-by-transaction audit. Estimates and unresolved allocations remain identified in the detailed analysis.
Inflation-adjusted trends: We express past spending in FY2024–25 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U (U.S. city average, all items, not seasonally adjusted). We average monthly index values from July through June for each fiscal year, then multiply spending by FY2024–25 CPI divided by that year's CPI. Fiscal-year averages: FY2021–22 282.02525, FY2022–23 299.685, FY2023–24 309.57008, FY2024–25 317.731. Nominal is the default. BLS source ↗
You can examine the source records and calculations behind each amount in Section 01.
FY2024–25 combined control totals
What Districts Report to Illinois: $2,243,746 · What the Districts Identify as Administration: $8,636,528.82 · Parents Care Reconstructed Costs: $9,657,082.89.
Technical reconciliation and detailed source notes
Detailed financial controls. Current master dollars: District Reported $2,243,746.00 · District-identified administrator costs $8,636,528.82 · Central Administration $5,365,550.63 · In-School Administration $4,291,532.26 · Parents Care Reconstructed Costs $9,657,082.89. District-identified administrator costs FY2024 to 25 period authority: historical staffing rosters, 34.9 Administration FTE Combined. Lens II personnel-related $7,679,349.73 plus other spending $957,186.76, with the nonspending $7.67 reconciliation adjustment, equals $8,636,528.82. The adjustment is not a third spending type or an extra expense. Spending type is a classification dimension, not a separate measure.
Check the underlying records
The FY2024–25 monthly Invoices Paid and Procurement Card Summary records behind the spending totals above. Nine months contained student or other individually identifying information and are posted in a privacy-redacted form; no unredacted version of those nine is hosted here. For the complete set of sources used across this site, including compensation records, see the Source Document Library.