Imagine that you had 8 staff that cost a total of $904,636. Next year, you will also have 8 staff, but they are only budgeted at $1117, for a mean salary of $139.63. (See p. 446.) That's the deal with Joel Klein's staff - his 8 staff stay, but they are working for sweatshop wages.

Hmmmm - if I wanted to make the central Department of Education budget appear smaller than it really is, might I make these monies reappear after public scrutiny of the budget subsided? I'm just saying.

If I am missing an alternate explanation (i.e. maybe budgets are meaningless after all?), please let me know.



Update: Thanks to Dave Bellel for sending along this page. Click to enlarge.