FWIW that can be reasonable depending on the size of the district. Ours has ~4k+ non-admin employees and 15+ physical plants. That's:

* a large enough headcount that you need an HR department,

* a large enough overall budget that you need a CFO and accountants,

* a large enough physical plant that you need (sizable) facilities and transportation departments (with storage space),

* a large enough IT plant that you need dedicated staff,

* a large enough student body that you need a legal/compliance group (open records requests, mandatory state/fed data collection and reporting, etc.),

* a large enough teaching staff that you need nodes whose primary function is coordinating significant curriculum changes across grade levels and schools,

* a large enough community that a full-time community relations person is cheaper than bringing in a PR firm whenever necessary (every dollar that schools spend or borrow comes from a democratic process that schools have to engage with seriously in all but the most affluent communities),

* and several other functions.

For a place with 4k people, that's dozens and dozens of admins. There are basically two options: build a wing onto a school, or build a stand-alone building. Most districts go the stand-alone route because 1) districts can often get cheap/free land anyways, and 2) it's a good idea to leave that physical space for schools to grow in case population increases.

FWIW I did the "look up all my past employer's [X type of admin] to engineer/sales/marketing ratios and compare to the school district" thing. I couldn't find anything out a whack. But the resulting raw numbers definitely mean the district needs dedicated space for admin folks.

This is why I am highly skeptical every time there's a bill/referendum/whatever to increase the education budget. It's not that I don't care about children and their education; it's that I doubt much of that money will get anywhere near where it needs to go.

FOIA headcount and budget info.

Also, pay attention to what the bill/referendum is for. Any competent district will have a website explaining to the public what the funds are going to be used for.

In particular, be careful about voting against bond issues that are placed on the ballot within one or two years of the maturation date for a similarly sized bond. Because those are basically a continuation of the status quo, and voting them down can mean costly deferred maintenance and/or dumb financial trade-offs.

Real example: firing a whole bunch of people this year to pay for asbestos removal in cash money (because the bond issue wasn't passed and this NEEDS to be done in order to use the building), and then re-hiring a bunch of people the next year. Because the bond issue failed and the bond issue is literally the only legal way to amortize the cost of the asbestos removal. So, I guess no amortization, we pay upfront and fire a bunch folks for a year in order to afford it. (BTW, we all know from the software industry what happens when you lay off a bunch of people -- you lose your best folks and it becomes difficult to recruit good people).

Think of it like this: school districts in many states literally can't amortize their capital costs without coming to you with a ballot initiative. By voting "no" carte blanc, you're basically saying "I carte blanc disapprove of my local school district using amortization". Which is pretty unreasonable.

Rightfully so. The school district I worked at was incredibly wasteful both staff and resource wise. Seniority, lack of being able to dismiss bad teachers and a slew of other nuecenses makes education a prime target for huge waste of tax dollars. When I confirmed just how little most administrators did for the benefit of the kids, it was difficult not to feel guilty for wasting public tax money. Knowing what I do know, I will never look the same way at the education system.

Me too. A public school district I worked at had an entire building to administration. Every person had their own office except HR people. The running joke among a few of us was that we don't have a clue why most of their jobs existed. On that note - it was also the time I read about wasted time at work. The article stated that most people work only 1-2 hours per day and the rest is just filler time with very little productivity. I started tracking my working time to see if it were true and sure enough, most of the day I did nothing other than sit around pretending to be busy. I then made it my mission to observe administrative staff (I worked in IT so I was able to do this) and confirmed that most of them did nothing as well. It was many years later when I started freelancing and billing by the hour that I realized just how few hours people work. I'd work 6 hours a day as a freelancer and I'd be totally exhausted and often thought about the easy days in IT. I think most people greatly overestimate their jobs importance.