Staffing of Primary Schools

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Page index:
Introduction
School boards employ teachers
Staffing Paid for by the Crown
Types of staffing paid for by the crown
Monitoring Staffing Usage
Banking Staffing
Possible Banking Staffing Traps
How the number of entitlement teachers the Crown will pay for in each school is decided
Helpful Resources

Introduction

Principals can seek advice and assistance about staffing matters by contacting 0800 NZEI Help (0800 893 443)

School boards employ teachers

While schools are able to employ as many teachers as they wish, the Crown will meet the cost of only a specified number of teachers for each school. Any other teachers are a cost to the school’s bulk grant.

The principal takes responsibility for making sure all teachers are paid correctly and coded to either “Teachers Salaries” (TS) the coding for teachers the Crown is paying for, or “Bulk Grant” (BG) the code for teachers paid for by the school. Every school receives a Staff Usage and Expenditure (SUE) Report at the end of each pay period. These must be checked by the Principal then signed and dated if correct, or actioned immediately if there are errors.
When processing new appointments, ensure that NZEI membership is included in the information given to the pay centre, along with the collective agreement under which the staff member is employed.

Staffing Paid for by the Crown

Schools are allocated a level of staffing for the school year. The staffing is expressed as Full Time Teacher Equivalents (FTTEs). The cost of employing the teachers is met by the Crown if coded to Teachers Salaries. The Ministry of Education has no direct interest in how schools manage this or any other staffing. The role of the Ministry is to notify the school of:

• the level of staffing the Crown will pay for
• any alteration in the level of that staffing from one year to the next
• progress at March in each year towards meeting the estimated provisional roll that determined the staffing for the school year
• the staffing used by the school in each pay period and charged to Teachers Salaries.

The way the staffing is managed is over to the school and so becomes a prime responsibility of the principal. Within certain requirements there is some flexibility around deciding:

• how the staffing is used
• when the staffing is used
• how vacancies are advertised; full-time, part-time, permanent or fixed-term.

Schools can:

• employ more or fewer teachers than their allocated staffing entitlement at any time during the school year ( called ‘banking staffing’)
• shift a teacher's payment from Teachers Salaries (TS) to Bulk Grant (BG), or vice versa, for any pay period.

Types of staffing paid for by the crown

The pdf document 'Staffing paid for by the crown' gives an overview of different staffing/funding areas that schools can be entitled to: Entitlement Staffing, Classroom Release Time Staffing, Special Education Staffing, Additional Staffing and Attached Teacher Staffing. See also the entitlement Staffing overview.

Monitoring Staffing Usage

Staffing usage must be monitored carefully at the school level.

Most principals manage all this very well. It is possible however for decisions that appear to be sensible, or expedient at the time, to have a negative effect on employees’ conditions or on the school’s future resourcing level.

Teachers can be moved between Teachers Salaries and the Bulk Grant for payment purposes. Ensuring payroll is informed correctly is vital. www.schoolpayroll.govt.nz

Banking Staffing

A Banking Staffing Report is issued to every school every fortnight along with the SUE Report.

Banking staffing allows the MoE to extract from schools the cost of any ‘overuse’ of staffing charged to Teachers Salaries. If too many teachers in a school are paid from Teachers' Salaries and the entitlement is exceeded over the school year the school has until pay period 26 in the following year to balance that over usage. If this is not achieved the cost of the extra staffing is taken from the school’s Operations Grant in April. The cost is calculated using the top step of the basic scale salary.

Any ‘under use’ of staffing provided by the Crown for the year will be reimbursed up to a limit of 10% of the school's entitlement.
More info.

Principals must:

• check all information going to Payroll is accurate. It is important to correctly identify the salary source for teachers (Teacher Salaries or Bulk Grant) if any benefits of 'banking staffing' are to be maximised
• check that every Ministry of Education (MoE) SUE/banking staffing report is correct before signing
• inform Payroll immediately if adjustments are needed to correct errors or if there is a change to the salary source of any teacher
• inform the Resourcing Division of the MoE immediately if adjustments to the usage are required or there has been a difficulty sorting out a payroll mistake
• have all decisions on banking staffing minuted as noted, or agreed, at a board meeting as part of the principal’s report.

Principals should:

• make use of the MoE website banking staffing spreadsheet to explore possible banking options
• minimise the cost of any over-usage by switching payment of less experienced teachers from Teachers Salaries to the Bulk Grant
• be proactive. Follow up anomalies quickly. Adjustments can take time to get sorted
• log phone calls and file all correspondence on banking staffing so that the history of communications can be traced if necessary
• seek advice from the pay roll service manager, MoE resourcing help desks, principals' networks and NZEI Principals Support Officers.

Principals should be aware that:

• holiday pay and ACC can cause variations to the staffing balance. Check with the MoE when these are noted
• banking staffing information is financial information. It will be audited. The documentation must be kept for seven years.

Possible Banking Staffing Traps

Boards and principals need to be aware that if a teacher is employed from the Bulk Grant the cost of all that teacher’s remuneration (e.g. sick leave and ACC) will come from that grant.

Provisionally Registered Teachers must be paid from Teachers Salaries for the school to be eligible for the MoE funded Beginning Teacher Time Allowance (0.2 FTTE for the first year and 0.1 FTTE for the second year).

If there is a reduction in entitlement staffing, the school might consider 'avoiding' identifying anyone as surplus by using the Bulk Grant or banked staffing to maintain a position. Any principal contemplating this action should be aware that the school could become responsible for surplus staffing costs at a later date as the MOE timeframe for meeting surplus staffing costs has a finite date.

Newly appointed principals should check the school’s Banking Staffing Report as soon as they take up the position so that the consequence of any previous over-usage is minimised and the benefits of any under usage can be maximised.

More info

How the number of entitlement teachers the Crown will pay for in each school is decided

In September of each year schools receive notice of the staffing entitlement for the following school year and the total number of teachers (FTTE) that can be employed at a cost to the Crown.
How the amount of the resource is determined can be viewed here.

Calculation

Staffing for the following school year is first calculated in July of the current year. (MoE Funding, Staffing, and Allowances Handbook, Chapter 2)

• On 1 July the principal supplies the Ministry of Education with information on the actual roll at that date and the 'likely' roll for 1 March of the following year
• The ministry then estimates a staffing roll for the following school year:
  • a 10 October roll for full and contributing primary and special schools; and 
  • a 1 March roll for intermediates

• The ministry compares that estimated roll with the board's 'likely' roll. The ministry also estimates the number of students on the roll approved for the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme
• The ministry informs the board of the provisional staffing entitlement for the following year
• The board has the opportunity to challenge the ministry estimate of the staffing roll by a date advised annually, usually in term 4. The forms for this can be accessed here.

Confirmation

(The 1 March role confirmation process)

 

The staffing entitlement for regular primary schools is confirmed in the following March. The board supplies the ministry with the actual numbers of children enrolled at each year level on 1 March. The ministry then recalculates the staffing entitlement.
Two recalculations are carried out.

• The first recalculation uses the 1 March roll plus a year 1 adjustment.  If this calculation results in a staffing level that is less than the provisional staffing entitlement by either:

1.0 FTTE or more, the board must get ministry permission before appointing permanently to any vacancies that occur during the year.
or
0.1 FTTE or more, but less than 1.0 FTTE, the board must consider carefully before appointing permanently to any vacancies.
And in both cases the provisional staffing entitlement is confirmed for the year as “assured” staffing.

• The second recalculation uses the actual 1 March roll without a year 1 adjustment.

If the recalculation shows the number of students estimated in September of the previous year is on track, then the provisional staffing entitlement is confirmed as "roll-based" staffing.

If the recalculation generates an increase over the provisional staffing then the increase is back-dated to the beginning of the school year and the increased entitlement is confirmed for the year as "roll-based" staffing.

If the roll rises above the staffing roll during the year there is a process for increasing the staffing up until a date in early December.

(Changes to staffing during the year)

 

Comparison of staffing levels at September

After the July returns the ministry sends a staffing notice to the school. On this there is a comparison of the staffing for the current school year and the staffing estimated for the following year.
Increase in staffing: If the school is entitled to employ more teachers for the next school year, the appointment process must be put into action. More teachers may mean

• an increase in the number of designated deputy or assistant principals the school can employ
• more salary units to allocate.

Decrease in staffing: If the school has too many teachers for the next school year the surplus staffing process must be put into action. It is the principal's responsibility to ensure that the timing of the action and the process followed is correct.
A change in the roll may mean a change in the principal's salary grade.
Detail of the process was sent to all schools in NZEI News 2011/07

Helpful Resources

• NZEI NEWS 2011/07
• Primary Principals' Collective Agreement 29 Nov 2010 - 15 August 2012
• Primary Teachers, Deputy Principals, Assistant Principals and other unit holders' Collective Agreement 29 Nov 2010 - 15 August 2012 (part9)
• Ministry of Education Funding Staffing and Allowance Handbook, Resourcing Division.
• Unit Allocation Guidelines 2011
• Classroom release time