DALLAS – Last spring, Dallas Independent School District officials were accused of transferring special “at risk” dollars that were meant for schools with more economically disadvantaged students to schools with wealthier students.

After a complaint was filed with the state, district officials made corrections and started to fully fund at least some of the disadvantaged schools that initially received much less money per student than they should have, according to a news report from WFAA-TV.

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But the day after the television report aired, the district suddenly announced that it had a budget deficit of about $10 million and had to immediately lay off 85 employees.

That move was made a week after the district’s budget director told reporters that DISD expected to have a $25-$30 million surplus at the end of the fiscal year.

To many, it appeared that the district had scrambled to replace the dollars that should have gone to the disadvantaged schools in the first place, and ended up short on funds.

“So what you start to do is play a shell game with this money putting it here and this money putting there,” Carlos Quintanilla, a local community activist, told the television station.

“At the end, you have a budget deficit and that’s what’s happening here at Dallas ISD because they have to replenish that money.”

One person commenting online to the story about the sudden layoffs wrote, “They should start at the top. That’s where the mistakes were made.”

If the district followed that advice, it could save a lot more than the $10 million freed up by the layoff of the 85 employees.

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In the current fiscal year, a startling total of 209 DISD employees – mostly administrators – will make at least $100,000 in straight salary, for a total of $26.1 million.

Eight employees on that list will make at least $200,000 per year, and the top official, new Superintendent Eliu Hinojosa, will make $335,000.

Ironically, the former superintendent, Mike Miles, resigned earlier this year for several reasons, including the fact that he wouldn’t have “immediate access to the $50,000 per year that the board has set aside and wouldn’t allow him to get until 2017,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

The rest of the top wage earners this year are Ann Smisko ($230,340), Venkatalakshmi Doniparthi ($223,508), James Terry ($222,789), Robert Bravo ($210,000), Michael Singleton ($206,876), Wanda Paul ($203,693), Cynthia Wilson ($200,000), Israel Cordero ($182,310), and Stephanie Elizalde ($182,310).

Some might wonder how the district can justify such high salaries for so many administrators when schools had apparently been shortchanged of crucial operating dollars.

They might also wonder why so many are being rewarded for mediocre academic results.

In the 2012-13 school year. 34 schools in the Dallas district failed to meet state academic standards. That number grew to 43 the following year, according to the Dallas Morning News.

In 2013 there were 35 Dallas schools on the annual list of the worst public schools in Texas, according to DISDblog.com.

“Dallas had the largest number of unacceptable schools in the entire State at 8% – double the number of Houston schools,” DISDblog.com reported.

The district’s Texas Academic Performance Report for 2014-15 also suggests persistent academic problems.

The percentage of Dallas students scoring satisfactory or better in dozens of academic subjects, at all grade levels, was consistently lower than the state or regional percentages.

Alissa Mack contributed to this report.