No, its financial officer, Doug Forth, told school board members at yesterday’s work shop.

The district cut nearly $1 million from general administration this year and shifted another $1.8 million into other categories, Forth said. (More on the shifts in a minute.) In terms of most money spent on administration, that should take Pinellas out of the embarrassing top spot among 13 comparable districts and drop it somewhere in the middle tier, he said.

Pinellas earned big, unflattering headlines earlier this year for its top-heavy ways. After a St. Petersburg Times story, the board ordered a closer look, which prompted Forth and others to see what other districts were doing.

Turns out, Pinellas was categorizing some expenses under general administration that many other districts were not, he said. So Pinellas adjusted accordingly.

For example, the mailroom in the administration building – a nearly half million dollar expense – was shifted from general administration to internal services.

The salary of chief business officer Lansing Johansson was also shifted. Forth said Johansson and his staff spend only part of their time working on general administration, so their expenses were proportionally divvied up among different categories. That left general administration about $160,000 lighter.

Forth said this is accepted practice and in line with other districts do.

We’ll be checking on that as soon as we can.

After the cuts and shifts, the general administration budget was reduced from $5.5 million to about $3.7 million, Forth said. (The district will know for sure after the books are closed in three weeks.) In terms of total budget, that should drop general administration from 0.76 percent to between 0.44 to 0.5 percent, he said.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter