Rudenstine also calls attention to growth that is outside Harvard's control. Increased government regulations with mandatory compliance, Rudenstine says, have forced the central administration to add additional staff members.

"New regulations come through, literally, almost all the time," Rudenstine says. "And you have no choice, whether it's removal of hazardous waste, new safety measures for this or that, or new kinds of bookkeeping. We need more people to simply do the reports and check the data."

Several members of FAS disagree with Rudenstine's explanation. One faculty member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says the bulk of the center's growth has been wasteful.

"It's an example of the typical unnecessary growth of bureaucracy," says the faculty member. "Advancement in computer technology has resulted in the need for more computer support staff, but doesn't explain the growth measured in thousands of positions."

The professor says the growth is even more unacceptable in an era when the FAS is combating budget deficits.

Rudenstine acknowledges that several schools, including FAS, the Graduate School of Design and the Kennedy School of Government, have made impressive strides towards balanced budgets.

Due to its budget-cutting efforts, FAS had to cut the number of exempt employees for four consecutive years between 1991 and 1994.

And the faculty member says that while many of Harvard's schools have done significant belt-tightening to reduce their deficits, the central administration has not made corresponding spending reductions.

But Touborg rejects the professor's assertion that the faculties trimmed their budgets while the central administration grew fat.

She says that the central administration and the faculties have both grown at roughly the same rates.

In the November 1995 Corvey-Price analysis, the Office of Human Resources reports that both the central administration and the faculties experienced the same rate of growth, 5.8 percent, in the largest category of exempt staff--administrative and academic managers.

The discrepancy appears to arise because the administration is evaluating data from a period, 1988-94, that extends before the time when budget-cutting in the FAS began in earnest in 1991. Also, the Human Resources analysis measures only a subclass of exempt staff. Complete data were unavailable at press time.

Out of Control?

The faculty member who spoke on condition of anonymity blames Harvard's highest governing board for not adequately containing Mass. Hall's spending.

"Faculties actually have to be accountable for the dollars they spend," the professor says. "The central administration is accountable to no one...except the Corporation, which doesn't seem to do anything about it."