ILLEGAL PAYMENTS.

Grey River Argus, 25 July 1922, Page 7

ILLEGAL PAYMENTS.

TO SCHOOL COMMITTEE ASSOCIATIONS. It transpired during a discussion at last Nelson Education Board meeting tint it was illegal for School Committees to use their funds to pay their annual subscriptions to School Committees’ Associations. The matter came, up when an application was road from the Nelson School Committees’ Association asking for a grant of £5 5/- towards the cost, of providing refreshments for children visiting Richmond and W: kefield in connection with the Prince of Wales’s film. The chairman (Mr F. AV. O. Smith) said it would be illegal for the board to make such a payment, and it would not be passed by the Audit Department. He went on to say that School Committees had no right to pay any of their funds to a self-constituted committees’ association, and the Audit Department, ■would not pass such payments. Mr Smith explained that he had only recently been aware of the fact, otherwise he would have brought the matter up before. Mr Boyes, in view of the chairman’s statement, thought the committees should be informed of the fact that it was illegal to make contributions to the association’s funds. It had been the custom in the past for committees to pay their subscriptions to tho association from the committees’ funds. It was stated that there was nothing to prevent school committees paying subscriptions to tho association from funds raised by concerns, etc. On tho motion of Mr Boyes, it was resolved to inform committees that it was illegal to make payments out of the ordinary funds to committees’ associations. It was also resolved to inform tho Nelson Association that the board had no money available for tho purpose.