The admin bloat is largely there to manage the absurd rulebook that changes constantly that control how they can spend their grant and donation money. Someone

The admin bloat is largely there to manage the absurd rulebook that changes constantly that control how they can spend their grant and donation money. Someone gives you a few million, but it always comes with a laundry list of conditions about how it can be spent, and usually an audit schedule and reporting requirements. This means you need a huge staff of people who largely shuffle money around between various groups to make sure group A who have millions in capital expenditure money can pay their janitors, that money comes from group C, who launders this through an agreement with group B to provide services in exchange for use on group A's equipment with group C's support staff.