Fewer people are earning six-figure salaries from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, as a shrinking budget has forced Superintendent Peter Gorman to cut top administrators and several highly paid principals have left.

CMS has 85 people earning $100,000 or more, according to 2011 payroll data released at the Observer's request. That's down from 104 last April.

The district has lost 1,214 full-time employees, including 665 full-time teachers, in the past year. With about 18,200 workers, CMS remains one of the Charlotte region's largest employers. But as enrollment continues edging up, the workforce is down from 19,769 two years ago, before the economy crashed.

Officials are gearing up for another round of job losses, including almost 600 teachers, as they brace for almost $100 million in state and county budget cuts this summer. The job losses will affect everything from class sizes and school hours to learning opportunities for pre-K and at-risk students.

That prospect renews the debate: Have Gorman and the board done all they can to protect classrooms?

Even the board is divided: Chair Eric Davis says leaders "have been incredibly conservative and fiscally disciplined," while member Kaye McGarry contends "we're still top-heavy on salaries."

The Observer requests the CMS payroll every year to provide a snapshot of an ever-changing workforce and to truth-squad competing claims about salaries, which make up most of the district's $1 billion-plus budget.

This year's list shows that schools have seen fewer jobs disappear than non-academic departments such as transportation, building services and administration.

Educators in some of the district's most challenging schools have collected a total of $2.8 million in bonuses, while central-office administrators have gotten none.

The payroll also indicates Gorman has been whittling the ranks of his highest-paid staff and reorganizing administration, though the exact scope of cuts can be hard to gauge.

For instance, his "learning community" administrative offices have 27 fewer employees than they did a year ago, saving almost $2 million in salaries.

But the staff of Chief Academic Officer Ann Clark has grown by a comparable number. CMS also has added seven people to the department that oversees its controversial performance pay and testing programs - and given 10 percent raises to two key players as they've taken on extra duties connected with those efforts.

"It's hard to ferret out the exact numbers," says Doug Swaim, a CMS parent who has helped organize MeckFUTURE, a group lobbying to protect the district from budget cuts. But, he says, "from what I can tell, yes, they're taking the hit in the central offices."

How teachers fared

Teachers make up 46 percent of all CMS employees, virtually unchanged since April 2010. But the current payroll shows CMS is now relying more on low-paid teachers in stop-gap positions.

Last spring, all but 15 of the 8,746 teachers listed were full time. This year's roster of 8,462 includes almost 400 instructors listed as temporary, part-time, interim or on leave.

CMS officials say the uncertainty about state money last summer led to a larger number of jobs being filled after the school year started, which added to temporary and interim hires. The district also started hiring part-time teachers again, after putting them high on the layoff list in 2009.

Teach For America cadets, who are recruited to work for two years in high-poverty schools, are considered regular full-time teachers.

Some veteran teachers have voiced suspicion that Gorman is using layoffs to force out experienced teachers and replace them with less expensive rookies. However, most of the teachers who have been laid off because of budget cuts are those with less than four years' experience, who lack tenure.

Among the full-time teachers who remain on the payroll, salary distribution has changed little in the past year. Seventy-one percent earn less than $50,000 a year, and 35 percent fall below $40,000.

The number topping $60,000 a year dropped from 805 last spring, or 9 percent of all teachers, to 689, or 8.5 percent.

CMS' pay scale for a 10-month school year ranges from $34,386 to $75,434, based on experience and credentials. Normally each year brings a raise, but N.C. teacher pay has been frozen for three years.

Some CMS teachers in special assignments or 12-month jobs can go higher. High-school ROTC teachers, who are considered active-duty military and have part of their salary paid by the federal government, top the list, with 18 listed at more than $80,000 a year. Robert Puckett, Hopewell's ROTC teacher, is listed as CMS' highest-paid teacher at $91,653 a year.

By 2014, Gorman plans to change the way teachers are paid, so student achievement counts more than experience and degrees. During the past year, 864 employees received some bonus payment, most of them educators in high-poverty schools that are pioneering experimental versions of performance pay.

Thirty-three received payments of at least $10,000, the amount awarded as recruitment bonuses for high-performing teachers and administrators who volunteer for duty in "strategic staffing" schools. Ashley Love, a math teacher at Martin Luther King Middle, got $14,900, the top bonus listed.

Top salaries

Except when duties changed significantly, those at the top of the CMS pay scale did not get raises. The only ones getting bonuses were principals rewarded for student gains at low-performing schools.

Gorman gets $30,000 a year in extra retirement pay. He qualifies for a performance bonus of up to 10 percent of his base pay, which he has declined the past two years.

This year he faces a dilemma. His plan for converting CMS to performance pay says he'll go first, starting this year. The board has goals for him based on how much progress students make on 2011 tests.

If he declines the bonus again, he could reinforce the notion that performance pay is an empty promise when money gets tight.

If he accepts, the district's highest-paid employee will reap a hefty reward while some teachers lose jobs and the rest get no raises.

Gorman, who was on vacation last week, did not respond to an email asking what he intends to do.

Davis, the board chair, emailed this reply: "On the matter of the Superintendent's bonus, that is a duty of the Board as a whole and is part of his annual evaluation which will be performed at the end of the year."