LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Last summer an Arkansas television station ran a story titled “Major Discrepancies Found in Little Rock School District Budget.”

The reporter mentioned the district’s office of the supervisor of guidance services, which spent less than six dollars on postage stamps over the previous two years but budgeted $3,000 for postage each year.

He mentioned the district’s auto collision repair program, which spent less than $20 on postage stamps in 2013, but had a postal budget of $500 that year, and increased it to $25,000 in 2014.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

He also reported about one district department doubling its travel budget from $28,000 to $46,000 in one year, as well as the superintendent’s office, which increased its travel budget from $1,000 to $14,000 in one year.

“I feel like there’s a lot of waste here and some of this money could be going to our neediest students,” one teacher told the reporter.

If the reporter is really interested in waste, he should take a close look at the district payroll.

In fiscal year 2014, the Little Rock district paid 48 individual employees more than $100,000 in straight salary. That came out to a total of $5.4 million.

The highest paid employee was Superintendent Dexter Suggs, who was paid $200,000.

Rounding out the top 10 were Associate Superintendent Marvin Burton ($149,676), Chief Financial Officer Kelsey Bailey ($141,312), Associate Superintendent Daniel Whitehorn ($132,828), Associate Superintendent Dennis Glasgow ($132,828), Senior Director of Student Services Frederick Fields ($132,828), Associate Superintendent Sadie Mitchell ($132,828), Career and Alternative Education Director Cassandra Norman-Mcghee ($114,708), Principal Dexter Booth ($114,708) and Principal Nancy Rousseau ($114,708).

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

According to news reports, the Little Rock school board was forced to withdraw $3 million from its reserve fund to meet its budget entering the 2013 fiscal year. The district also had to deal with a $4 million deficit headed into the current fiscal year.

An article published by the Arkansas Reporter last year suggests that he situation could get worse:

“Financial problems loom as the annual LRSD budget will soon shrink by some $37 million as state desegregation payments come to a close thanks to a final settlement earlier this year — just as a new facilities improvement plan approved by the current board calls for half a billion dollars in new construction and building improvements.”

Another fair question is whether the administrators making the big money have delivered what should be big results.

The answer is a clear “no.”

In 2012-13 its graduation rate was 75 percent, which was nine percentage points short of the state goal of 84 percent.

Meanwhile, several of the district’s schools have been failing, leading to widespread discussion of a state takeover.

“There are now six schools designated as being in “academic distress” by the Arkansas Department of Education, which means fewer than half of those schools’ students are performing on or above grade level,” the article in the Arkansas Reporter said.

“Three of the city’s five public high schools (Hall, McClellan and J.A. Fair) are designated as such. Under ADE rules, a district is subject to state takeover if even one of its schools is in academic distress, although the state Board of Education has discretion about when to exercise that power.”

The idea of a state takeover is apparently appealing to many in the community.

As columnist Max Brantley wrote in the Arkansas Times, “I confess my own sympathy to the idea (of a takeover). Good intentions abound on the school board and with Superintendent Suggs, but progress has been modest.”

So academic progress has been “modest,” to the point where the state may have to step in. But there’s nothing modest about the administrative salaries in the Little Rock district.

Lucrative compensation should be for those who produce positive results, and there clearly have not been enough of those in Little Rock.