EDUCATION ACCOUNTS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3125, 2 July 1917, Page 4

EDUCATION ACCOUNTS

MISDIRECTION OF GRANTS A reiriarkablo state of affairs in con* section with the accounts of tho Eduction Department and the Education! Boards was revealed by the Hon J A; Hanan, Minister of Education, on Sa'tuiv day in tho course of a reply to a depute tion from tho Conference of Directors of! Technicals Schools. , Tho Minister stated! that ho was hampered in his efforts to provide increased educational facilities' by the fact that certain Education' Boards had misdirected the moneys granW ed to them in past years, with the reJ suit that certain accounts were nowseri-s ously in debit.

The Minister stated that applications' for assistance had caused Win to makW inquiries regarding the financial position, of certain boards He was pained tof discover that the accounts had been al-j lowed to drift into a most unsatisfactory}; position without any serious attempt all remedy. One of the boards did not ap-j pear to realise that there was anything!) wrong about its methods until he ex-J plained the financial position. He hadf' actually been asked to make good from,] tho public funds debits amounting to a.', vory large 6um. Certain school buildings; were in a serious state of disrepair, imj - spito of the fact that year by year money]! had been provided for the specific puri pose of their maintenance. The moneyj had been misdirected to other educational} ends. , After gathering some information re-* garding the position, 6aid tho Minister*] ho had secured tho services of an officcnl of tHe Audit Department to make an ex-ij amination of the board's accounts. Tha'; export's report showed that expenditure;'! in various accounts had , exceeded bj\ moro than £90,000 the sums properly be-j longing to those accounts. This amounts , of money had been' diverted from its] lawful purpose, with tho result that es-d cential branohes of the education system;] had been loft in debit. It appeared' that the boards wore not wholly siblo for this state of affairs. There w«* ovidence of short granting by the De*: partment for obvious requirements, with;! tho result that liabilities had accumulat--] cd. Theso conditions had been in exist*, once for a number-of years, with fewW challenges and few attempts at reform.) and the boards had come to regard tho confusion as a natural condition. Tho Minister eaid that in many cases the men now in control were not respond sible for. what had been dona.by other: men. His own object now was to get the education accounts on a. 6onnd financial basis. He intended to bring the matter*! before Cabinet for consideration./ In! the' meantime he had considerable diffi-ji culties to deal with from the financial)' point of view, since in certain accounts; there were accumulated liabilities that, •would absorb' a vory largo sum of money,, indeed.- Ho had already got rid of soma, of these liabilities in respect to and technical instruction, but ho had tof .. face the task of getting all the accounte on a proper business footing. When the; finances were on an .improved footing tM Dominion would get better results fron its education system. '