Correction appended

Faculty leaders have taken aim at GW’s swelling bureaucracy, but it’s not just those employees’ salaries and benefits that hike up the costs.

Bringing on top-level employees can also cost GW hundreds of thousands of dollars in professional recruitment services, according to contract proposals obtained by The Hatchet.

Earlier this month, headhunter firm Carrington and Carrington proposed GW a $42,000 charge to hire a director of talent acquisition and recruitment.

That fee amounts to 30 percent of the position’s projected first-year salary, which would have been about $140,000.

GW spokesman Dave Andrews said that Human Resources decided not to go along with the proposal.

But the invoice shows a side of administrative costs that typically aren’t disclosed.

The administration has grown 44 percent from 2004 to 2012, according to a recent report from the Delta Cost Project, mirroring a national trend in higher education where economists link administrative bloat to rising tuition costs.

Employee salaries and benefits make up some of the fastest growing costs in the University’s nearly billion dollar operating budget, which has grown about 71 percent since 2001.

This post was updated Feb. 24, 2014 to reflect the following correction:
The Hatchet incorrectly reported that GW paid Carrington and Carrington for its services in this search. A GW spokesman confirmed that GW did not end up following through with the proposal. We regret this error.