The board of the Cincinnati Public Schools approved a $428 million budget Monday that included a last-minute switch — taking $500,000 from some areas to increase principal salaries.

        School officials say the district, like many others, faces a shortage of people qualified and interested in becoming principals. The $500,000 is necessary to stay competitive with other districts, they say.

        “We have had principals leave the district to take jobs in other school districts who get significant increases in salary,” said district spokeswoman Jan Leslie. “We are competitive with teachers' salaries, but our principals' salaries have not kept pace with the market.”.

        The minimum salary for a principal in a kindergarten-to-8th-grade school who works the standard 220 days is $64,100, she said. The minimum salary for a high school principal working the standard 261 days is $69,540, she said.

        Theresa Frazier Norris, CPS president of the Cincinnati Association for Administrators and Supervisors, said some principals' salaries are not even competitive with teachers' salaries.

        The district is in negotiations for principals' salaries.

        The areas that were cut for the principal salary allocation were:

        • $300,000 from the district's $937,900 principal leadership development program.

        • $80,000 from the special-education office, reducing the funding detailed in the district-commissioned audit of the special-education program from $380,000 to $300,000.

        • $100,000 from the $782,400 budget for kindergarten-to-8th-grade restructuring. This will remove startup funding for a Cincinnati Academy of Math and Science program at Porter School.

        • $20,000 reduction of the $236,400 project to do electronic imaging of all the district's records.

        Ms. Frazier Norris said she hopes negotiations for principal salaries will be completed sometime in August.

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