D.C. Council members Wednesday expressed concerns about the quadrupling in staff and ballooning budget of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education as they grilled office head Deborah Gist.

The lawmakers also urged Gist not to allow schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to forfeit control over 27 schools judged by the federal government to be chronically failing. At-large member Carol Schwartz raised concerns about the state superintendent’s office becoming excessively large.

Before Gist’s office became a city agency in October, there were fewer than 90 employees.

Now, after picking up personnel from the D.C. Public School System and the University of the District of Columbia, the staff is slated to be more than four times that large.

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“I don’t want to see a huge bureaucracy build up. ... This past school system was too much bureaucracy, and now I look at pages and pages of positions, and I look at these high salaries,” Schwartz said. “You need to be careful about that.”

Gist said that there were more than 100 vacancies out of more than 400 positions. The hope is to eliminate some jobs along the way, so as to decrease the overall size of the agency. So far, 35 positions have been deemed unnecessary, she said.

At the hearing, Council Chairman Vincent Gray said he was worried Gist would rubber-stamp plans from Rhee to restructure the 27 schools the federal government has said haven’t met standards. Gray added that both ultimately work for the mayor.

It’s Rhee’s responsibility to come up with plans of action for each school. No plan can be implemented, though, until Gist approves it.

While the state superintendent said she didn’t foresee problems, she defended her objectivity.

“You’ve asked me whether I felt confident fulfilling my obligations,” Gist said. “And the answer is yes.”

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com