Wairarapa College to reinstate school board

Two years ago, Wairarapa’s largest college had serious financial problems that led to the sacking of the school board.

Now, with help from the Ministry of Education, Wairarapa College has managed to claw its way out of a $1.86 million hole. In July, it was back in surplus, putting it in the position to soon reappoint a board of trustees.

The ministry put in place Commissioner John Carlyon, who, with the help of specialist accountants Michael Rondel and Steve Papps from BDO, managed to get the 900-student college back on track.

Rondel said $1.86m was an early estimate of the amount of debt and deficit in working capital funds that the college faced, which included amounts owed to the ministry, a bank and a provision for deferred property repairs and maintenance.

The college was brought back to a financially sustainable and stable position through several means.

‘‘Realistic operating budgets and achieving operating and cash surpluses, keeping teacher staffing levels within ministry entitlement and sensible expenditure control without impacting desired education outcomes,’’ Rondel said.

Principal Shelley Power said getting the board back was a key step in the school moving forward and there were a lot of positive things happening.

‘‘The school can now look to the future in a positive way.’’

Carlyon said Power and the school staff had faced some hard decisions and had made considerable efforts to ensure students were not disadvantaged.

‘‘To a major extent the school has pulled itself up by its own bootstraps. The ministry was actively involved and has made every attempt to be constructive.

‘‘The upshot of all of this is that the Ministry of Education is now satisfied that the risks facing the college have been reduced to such an extent that a return to an elected board is timely.’’

Ministry spokeswoman Katrina Casey said the school getting $10 million as part of a national school upgrade scheme meant the college did not need to spend so much on maintenance.