NT school funding agreement includes more accounting fiddles
Aug 11, 2024
The new school funding agreement between the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments brings a much needed boost to public schools funding. However, the claims by the Federal Education Minister, the NT Chief Minister and the NT Education Minister that Territory public schools will be fully funded by 2029 is a deliberate falsehood, that is, a lie.
The new agreement continues the accounting fiddles of the previous agreement and includes more fiddles. It means that Territory public schools will continue to be under-funded indefinitely. It sets a precedent for accounting fiddles to continue in other agreements.
The agreement provides a major funding boost for NT public schools and disadvantaged students, but they will still be short changed. The Commonwealth Government has agreed to double its share of funding the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) of public schools in the Territory. It will increase its share from 20% to 40% by 2029. The Territory Government will increase its funding share from 59% to 60%. As it will take five years to get to these targets, public schools will be under-funded for the next four years of the five year agreement. The under-funding for the period is estimated at about $485 million based on Commonwealth aggregate funding projections provided to Senate Budget Estimates for 2022-23 and the funding shares of the two governments provided in the new agreement.
However, claims that public schools will be funded at 100% of their SRS by 2029 are a deception. The agreement is not the full deal because it includes accounting fiddles that will continue to swindle public schools of funding. NT public schools will be funded at slightly less than 96% of their SRS in 2029.
As in the previous agreement, the NT Government will be able to claim as part of its SRS share expenditures that are specifically excluded from how the SRS is measured. It will be able to claim expenditure on capital depreciation and direct school transport expenditure up to 4% of the total SRS. The new agreement also includes additional allowance to claim expenditure on the NT Board of Studies and the Teacher Registration Board. Such expenditures are also specifically excluded from how the SRS is measured.
The shortfall in funding resulting from the 4% allowance will average nearly $50 million a year over the next five years of the agreement, that is, a total shortfall of about $$246 million. The annual reports of the Teacher Registration Board show expenditure of about $2 million per year. The annual reports of the Board of Studies do not report expenditure, so it is assumed here at about double that of the Teacher Registration Board. Given this, it is estimated that the total under-funding of NT public schools due to the accounting fiddles will be about $276 million over the next five years.
The total under-funding due to the delay in getting to the Commonwealth and NT funding shares and the accounting fiddles is therefore estimated at $761 million over five years.
The new agreement is a landmark in the funding of NT public schools as they will be much better funded over the next five years. However, they will remain under-funded over the life of the agreement.
The NT agreement sets a precedent for agreements with other states. Clearly, accounting fiddles will be a feature of agreements between the Labor Government and other state governments, just as they were with the previous agreements with the Morrison Government. It will mean that public schools will not be fully funded by 2029, except those in the ACT. By letting the States get away with accounting fiddles, the Albanese Government has failed to meet its election promise of fully funding public schools. Seventeen years after the Gonski report recommended full funding for public schools, it will remain undelivered.
Once again, Labor has failed public schools. The Albanese Government and state Labor governments will continue to over-fund private schools until at least 2029, including those serving the richest families in Australia, while public schools serving the vast majority of low income and Indigenous students will remain under-funded indefinitely. Labor governments, Federal and state, stand condemned for their double standards in funding public and private schools and for their deception that public schools will be fully funded by 2029.
Trevor Cobbold National Convenor
Trevor Cobbold is National Convenor of Save Our Schools.
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