Lens 1 · Official reporting
What Districts Report to Illinois
The official administration amount drawn from specified state accounting functions. We report it as classified, without redefining it.
$2,243,746
Official fiscal year benchmark
01 / THREE WAYS TO MEASURE
Same school system. Different questions.
Lens 2 · District defined
Cost of District Listed Administration
Parents Care calculates the cost of people in the districts’ Bottom Line administrator count, plus qualifying nonpersonnel costs. It does not count salaries of other staff merely because they do administrative work.
$8,636,529
Controlled reconstruction
Lens 3 · Economic purpose
Administration by Economic Purpose
Spending on work whose primary purpose is administration, even when the people or purchases fall outside a district job category or reporting function.
$9,657,083
Controlled reconstruction
02 / WHAT IS INCLUDED
Administrative work that a narrow definition can miss
Each row shows whether the expense is Included or Excluded under each lens. Select an example to see why.
| Expense or function Select to view the reason | Lens 1 State report | Lens 2 District defined | Lens 3 Parents Care |
|---|
03 / WHY THE DIFFERENCE MATTERS
The central lesson: administrative work is not the same as roster membership
Human Resources and Business Office employees can perform clearly administrative work without appearing on the districts’ administrator rosters. School Board governance is another area where Lens III can include costs that Lens II excludes.
Administrative work is not the same as a district listed administrator.
That distinction also matters in finance offices and Board governance. Do not infer that a difference between broad category totals is the payroll of specific excluded employees.
04 / THE RULES BEHIND THE TABLE
How to read the classifications
- Lens I follows a defined set of official accounting functions, not every employee doing administrative work.
- Lens II personnel includes only people or roles in the districts’ Bottom Line administrator footprint for the year. Nonroster salaries do not enter as “support.”
- Lens II may include qualifying nonpersonnel operating costs even when a nonroster employee’s salary is excluded.
- Lens III follows administrative economic purpose, but a claimed individual dollar amount still requires an evidence match.
- All displayed cells classify a specifically defined expenditure. Cases without enough evidence remain outside this page.
- Examples using Board cost categories may overlap. Do not add these illustration amounts to each other or to any lens total.