SCHOOL COMMITTEE ACCOUNTS

Shannon News, 27 May 1927, Page 2

SCHOOL COMMITTEE ACCOUNTS

IS DEPARTMENT TOO EXACTING. DUNEDIN, May 18. That the form of the annual balancesheet which the Education Department requires school committees to produce was too complicated was a complaint made to the Education Board to-day by The Ettrick School Committee. The committed intimated that there . had been difficulty in securing a committee man to act as clerk, and it was believed that if the annual balance-sheet were made simpler there would be less difficulty in securing a man for the position. . The secretary (Mr. G. Carrington), who presented one of the forms to each member, said it was a complicated one. Instead of keeping an account for ordinary school funds and one for money raised locally most committees kept them together and they only knew roughly what was their own money and what was the board’s money. The chairman (Mr. J. Wallace) said he thought they should tell the Department that the committee was not composed of accountants. He had helped the treasurer of a committee, and knew the form had th<?m“floored.” Mr. McKinley said he thought the form was all right. The chairman: It is all right if you have a trained accountant to keep the books. In nineteen out of twentycommittees there is no accountant. Mr. Mitchell: “It makes a lot of unnecessary work, costing money and returning nothing. ” He added that all that should be required was a statement of receipts and expenditure show ing where the money came from and how it was expended. It was decided to refer consideration of the matter pending a report from the School Committees’ Association.