The principal of a school cited in a report by the Office of the Auditor General earlier this week has refused to answer questions about other expense payments and practices at his school.
Manurewa West School. Photo: RNZ / Supplied
David Wallis confirmed decile 1 Manurewa West School paid for his home phone and broadband, and for travel and meal expenses but would not go into details or answer questions about allegations provided to RNZ.
The school was named in this week's annual report on school audits because of overseas travel and because the board had not sought Education Ministry permission for payments to Mr Wallis including $550 for a stress-relief weekend.
Mr Wallis told RNZ News he would comment only on matters raised by the Auditor-General's report and not on the allegations.
"I am not going to be assisting you with it because it has not been brought to our notice by people that we ... need to listen to," he said.
"The important thing to note is that as a school we got a completely clear and unqualified audit report for 2016."
He said the school would discuss grey areas of interpretation about expenses with the School Trustees Association in order to get clarity.
Mr Wallis ended his telephone interview with RNZ before a list of allegations could be put to him, however, RNZ News has sent details to the chairperson of the school's board of trustees, Carla Hayes. She said the school would respond under the terms of the Official Information Act.
Mr Wallis was happy to talk about the payments raised by the Office of the Auditor General, which he said were appropriate work-related expenses.
Mr Wallis said a trip to Kuala Lumpur for senior staff was paid for from school fundraising, not from government funding and was important for a school with Asian and Muslim students.
He said the auditor had acknowledged an error in calculating that taxpayer funding had been used for the trip.
Mr Wallis said a "revitalisation and refreshment sabbatical grant" worth "a couple of thousand" dollars was in fact for a professional development trip to Fiji where he delivered reources to a school damaged by a cyclone.
He said a well-being payment of $550 was made because he had been under considerable stress processing the school payroll in the absence of an administration staff member. He estimated his work on the payroll had saved the school as much as $15,000 in wages.
Mr Wallis said the school had been paying his broadband and phone bills so that he could work from home for "quite a while" and he did not understand why auditors had not raised it previously.
He said the school had expressed disatisfaction with its auditor and wanted a different company to review its financial statements next year.
Education Ministry figures said Manurewa West School had 464 students in July this year and last year received nearly $1 million in operational funding.
The school's most recent Education Review Office report was completed in 2014 and was positive, with the next review scheduled in four or five years - the best possible outcome from a review office visit.
The president of the Educational Institute, Lynda Stuart, said well-being payments to principals were "very uncommon" because schools were "strapped for cash".
The president of the Secondary Principals Association, Mike Williams, said most schools stopped paying for principals' home phone and broadband after a ruling by the Auditor General several years ago.
He said well-being payments were unusual though there might be cases where they were appropriate.
The president of the Principals Federation, Whetu Cormick, said schools were supposed to reimburse staff travel and meal expenses if they were for school-related reasons.
He said schools were very careful with their money.
"I would think that every school throughout the country, around 2400 schools, would have a financial control policy and underneath that there'd be policies around professional development and what's appropriate to spend," Mr Cormick said.
The Education Ministry said it would seek explanations from the schools mentioned in the Auditor-General's report and urged people with specific concerns about any schools to contact it.
