AP

The Bengals maintain a streamlined and efficient (and thus inexpensive) front office. The payroll will drop even farther after the 2011 season.

Director of football operations Jim Lippincott is retiring. The team announced the move earlier today.

Lippincott will return to Cincinnati Moeller High School as the football team’s defensive coordinator. He will continue to work for the Bengals on a part-time basis through the April 2012 draft.

“Jim has been a valued member of our front office for some 20 years, working as both a scout and as an administrator,” Bengals president Mike Brown (pictured) said. “His work at Moeller is where his heart takes him now, but I thank him for all he has done here over the years and wish him only the very best. Jim will still be very much in the Bengals picture as we head toward this year’s draft.”

The Bengals have said nothing about the plans to replace Lippincott, who jumped from Moeller to the Bengals in 1992.