Concern about schools cash

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 14

Concern about schools cash

Pr- Wellington The Audit Office is still concerned about the lack of financial accountability and the low standard of financial management and reporting in many areas of the education system. The annual report of the Auditor-General (Mr A. C. Shailes) says that his report last year commented on this facet of the education system. The number of education authorities receiving qualified audit reports in the last year “has done nothing to lessen this concern,” he says in his latest report. “Education authorities in general and secondary and primary schools in particular become the focal point for fund-raising: their very existence is the reason for funds to be collected in various ways by groups integral to individual schools. “Accountability for these funds, as well as for the Government grants re-

ceived, is the matter which concerns this office,” he says. Mr Shailes calls for each as parent-teacher organisations, to account properly for the funds they group, including those such have under their control. The Audit Office is also critical of the Education Department’s system for recovery of overpayments of teachers’ salaries. The report gives the example of a high-school poard which overpaid seven teachers in 1974 by up to <sl74. Though the board is the “employer,” in practice teachers are paid direct by the department. But the law recognises the governing body as employer and the Audit Office has to deal through governing bodies in any attempt to recover overpayments of teachers’ pay. Of the 1974 example, the report says: "In spite of frequent requests by the department, by 1978 the board had taken no action to recover the sums overpaid. Because of the lapse of time and other considerations, further recovery action was unlikely to bring results.” The Auditor-General’s report recommends a change in the Education Act to make the department directly responsible for recovery of teachers’ salaries.