State funds used for Hawaii trip

Two schools singled out for spending on foreign getaways

This kura, and Clendon Park School, have reviewed their financial policies and procedures and are currently in sound financial positions.

Katrina Casey

Asouth Auckland school has been ticked off for using taxpayer funds to subsidise a trip to Hawaii. Clendon Park School, a decile-1 school of 612 students, has confirmed that it used $14,580 from its Ma¯ori language funding to help pay for the trip for 23 students, three of the students’ siblings and 23 parents and teachers.

The Audit Office says in its annual report on schools that the school’s total contribution of $53,371 towards the $153,580 cost of the trip was

“significant considering the small number of students and families involved”.

“It was also inappropriate for the school to fund travel for students from other schools,” the office said.

It said a Rotorua school, Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Te Koutu, also “spent more than the board approved on an educational trip to Mexico” in 2017.

That trip has already led to a censure by the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal of the kura’s principal at the time, Uenuku Fairhall, for sleeping naked in the same bed as another student during the trip.

The two schools were the only ones singled out for inappropriate spending on overseas trips in this year’s report, but 36 schools were listed as in “financial difficulty” because they did not have enough funds at the time of the audit to cover their expected costs in the next year.

Katrina Casey, deputy secretary for sector enablement and support for the Ministry of Education said staff had been working with the schools named in the audit report to resolve the issues raised.

“The additional funds for Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Te Koutu relate to an unforeseen and urgent request from the Board for the students, principal and teachers to return to New Zealand,” she said. Under the circumstances this was the correct course of action and these unforeseen costs could not have been planned for.

“This kura, and Clendon Park School, have reviewed their financial policies and procedures and are currently in sound financial positions.”

Clendon Park School principal Sue Dawson, who went on the Hawaii trip with her husband in October last year, said it followed an earlier trip in 2008 which had led to an ongoing relationship between the school’s eight-class Ma¯ori bilingual unit and seven indigenous schools in Hawaii.

Board chairman Wayne Bennett said the parents, teachers and students who went on the trip paid $100,209 themselves, and another $39,000 was raised through a threeyear fundraising campaign in the school’s Ma¯ori community.

“The school has never been made aware that once this fundraising was accrued in the school account it was deemed to be Crown money,” he said.

“The three siblings of wha¯nau were not paid for by the school. They paid a higher amount than the wha¯nau students and were subsidised by the fundraising which they were involved in accruing.”

The Mexico trip by Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Te Koutu was also part of a long-standing connection with Mexican schools. The decile-3 kura’s 241 students all learn Spanish as well as te reo Ma¯ori, and groups of students and teachers visit Mexico every three years.

The Audit Office said the January 2017 trip by 21 students and three staff “cost $105,425 more than expected, which the school funded by locally raised funds and other funds controlled by the board of trustees”.

“The board of trustees also breached the law by failing to submit its audited financial statements to the Ministry of Education by May 31, 2018,” the office said.