Govt will be cutting education costs to find $680m after doing its sums on a pay deal for teachers
The Minister of Education has answered our question: how is the government spending (or misspending) our money?
It will be spent on giving secondary school teachers more money in their pay packets – and this will cost heaps.
But it looks like the money – $680 million – will come from cutting costs elsewhere in the Education domain.
The decision follows an arbitration panel recommending that secondary teachers get the pay rise spread over three instalments.
The Herald reported yesterday:
If accepted by both parties the recommended settlement is likely to have knock-on effects for early childhood and primary school teachers. Under pay parity rules, the Ministry of Education must offer any changes to teachers’ unified base salary scale to primary teachers and then in turn to kindergarten teachers.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti today announced the Government has agreed to support the Independent Arbitration Panel’s recommendation to increase secondary teachers’ base salaries by 14.5 per cent by December 2024.
She further said the Government has agreed to find the money through savings from other parts of the Education Budget and Education’s Budget 2024 cost pressure allowance.
Her statement can be found alongside ministerial news about the emergency management relationship between New Zealand and Fiji, apprenticeship statistics and proposed changes to laws governing retirement villages.
Then there’s the news that New Zealand has no farms infected with the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis (M.bovis).
The decision follows an arbitration panel recommending that secondary teachers get the pay rise spread over three instalments.
The Herald reported yesterday:
If accepted by both parties the recommended settlement is likely to have knock-on effects for early childhood and primary school teachers. Under pay parity rules, the Ministry of Education must offer any changes to teachers’ unified base salary scale to primary teachers and then in turn to kindergarten teachers.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti today announced the Government has agreed to support the Independent Arbitration Panel’s recommendation to increase secondary teachers’ base salaries by 14.5 per cent by December 2024.
She further said the Government has agreed to find the money through savings from other parts of the Education Budget and Education’s Budget 2024 cost pressure allowance.
Her statement can be found alongside ministerial news about the emergency management relationship between New Zealand and Fiji, apprenticeship statistics and proposed changes to laws governing retirement villages.
Then there’s the news that New Zealand has no farms infected with the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis (M.bovis).
Latest from the Beehive
The Government has agreed to support the Independent Arbitration Panel’s recommendation to increase secondary teachers’ base salaries by 14.5 percent by December 2024.
A new agreement signed today will bolster emergency management cooperation between New Zealand and Fiji, says Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty.
Proposed changes for the retirement village sector balance fairness for consumers with ensuring the sector is supported, Associate Housing Minister Barbara Edmonds announced today.
New Zealand has no farms infected with the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis (M.bovis) as the joint Government and primary sector eradication effort moves into its next phase.
The Government’s successful Apprenticeship Boost Initiative has supported a whopping 60,000 apprentices stay in or take up an apprenticeship, since it was introduced in August 2020.
Jan Tinetti insisted the government is “absolutely committed” to investing in teachers to attract and retain the best to teach our young people.
The pay increase offered by the Government today will give beginner teachers an annual increase of almost $10,000, in addition up to the $7,210 lump sum payment.
Politicking crept into the next sentence of the press statement:
The offer provides an increase of 36 per cent for teachers at the top of the pay scale since we’ve been in Government, compared to a 10 percent increase under the last National Government.
And then came the big numbers:
“The panel’s recommendation adds an extra cost of approximately $680 million to the $3.76 billion already set aside in the Budget to settle teachers’ and principals’ agreements. This includes an increase to other education collective agreements which will flow on from this decision.
“After careful consideration and weighing up the current challenging financial environment, the Government has agreed to find the money through savings from other parts of the Education Budget and Education’s Budget 2024 cost pressure allowance,” Jan Tinetti said.
To meet the additional cost, the main savings of $374 million have been found within the education budget:
- Savings from Ministry of Education departmental funding
- Forecast staffing underspend mostly as a result of newer teachers being employed
- Removal of reimbursement for underuse of ‘banked staffing’ for all schools, excluding Kaupapa Māori and Māori Medium Education (from July 2025)
- Deferring the Te Ao Marama and Hobsonville Point Secondary School projects in the Public Private Partnership Schools Expansion Programme, and rephase the current operating funding
PPTA members will vote on the new offer over the next week.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton.
1 comment:
Ultimately, the Govt (on our behalf) won't mind spending this money on the teachers. After all, the latter are complicit in doing a sterling job dumbing down our children so they won't know how to think other than seek menial jobs or welfare from the likes of Labour(incompetent), Greens(Benefits), & te Pati Maori(total segregation) parties - and to be all their core future supporters.
Of course, it will all ultimately end badly, but meantime "they're all in it for...themselves."
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