The nearly 100 D.C. Public Schools employees fired last week by schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee earned roughly $6.1 million in combined salaries, school system officials said yesterday.
Forty of the 98 employees worked in the school system’s Office of Information Technology and earned $2.4 million in combined annual salary.
Schools spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said the workers were let go as the school system turns to the city’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer for its technical support.
“The city has made a huge investment in creating the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, whose job now is to bring DCPS up to the same standards as the rest of the city government,” Miss Hobson said.
An additional 26 workers in the DCPS earned $1.6 million combined and were “extended-day” employees charged with coordinating the system’s after-school, summer school and Saturday Scholars programs.
The remaining 32 employees worked in nine other departments, including Human Resources, Special Education, Food Services and the Office of the Chancellor. They earned a combined $2.2 million.
Mrs. Rhee notified the employees of their dismissals on Friday in the first wave of firings since she was granted increased personnel authority by the D.C. Council in January.
School officials have said the dismissals are a way to create accountability among the 726 employees in the system’s central office, and will help streamline what Mrs. Rhee has said is a bloated administrative work force.
Miss Hobson said none of the fired workers had direct contact with the nearly 50,000 students in D.C. Public Schools.
For example, she said the fired Food Services employees did not include 222 full-time workers that must be used by companies proposing to manage the system’s food operations.
News of the firings last week angered some council members, including council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, who called for more information on the employees and their past performances.
Miss Hobson said interim D.C. Attorney General Peter J. Nickles was expected to deliver the combined salary and department details to Mr. Gray’s office yesterday.
Gray spokeswoman Doxie McCoy said the chairman had received the information but was drafting a request for more details to Mrs. Rhee.
“Chairman Gray is looking for more detailed information on performance evaluations for each terminated employee, and [a] letter to Chancellor Rhee will request such when it is sent,” she said.
• David C. Lipscomb contributed to this report.
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