The current situation Journal Modern Accounting & Auditing 2010-6.

How selected primary schools in rural New Zealand manage their financial resources of limited government funding in order to effectively meet their schools objectives 17 that school. The source for selecting the sample schools was obtained from the Ministry of Education website, “Decile 2008 list of all schools in NZ”. This list was then refined to include only full primary, state or state integrated schools in the Waikato Region. Six participant schools were to participate in the study, with at least two schools representing in each of the three main decile groupings low, medium, high. These three ranges are considered typical EROMinistry ranking descriptors for all schools whereby low includes deciles 1-3, medium includes deciles 4-7 and high includes deciles 8-10. In addition, it was decided to select all sample schools based on a similar roll size so that the results could be compared accurately. Roll size is also determined by EROMinistry guidelines and refers to the numbers of students in the school during a given year. Small rolls are 0-150 students, medium are 151-300 students, and large referring to 301+ students for primary schools. For this research study, a medium roll size school from the sample of candidates was chosen to represent typical schools. The method chosen for selecting the final respondents was based on “non-probability convenience sampling”–schools were chosen from the sample based on their location within Hamilton city and close surrounding. Of the eight schools invited, four accepted the invitation, two declined and two failed to respond because of a tight timeframe for completing the research fieldwork. The acceptance rate of 50 was considered reasonable. To maintain confidentiality of the participant schools, the identities of the schools have been disguised using pseudonyms. Their general descriptions are outlined in Table 1. Table 1 School participant characteristics School Decile grouping Decile rating Roll size Authority and school type Location Tahi Medium 6 289 State, full primary Rural Rua Medium 5 265 State integrated, full primary Urban Toru Low 3 247 State, full primary Urban Wha High 10 206 State, full primary Rural In addition to the interview data, the annual reports and financial statements relating to the two preceding years December 31, 2006 and 2007 were obtained from each school. Selected financial data from those reports were analysed to report on any similarities or differences between the schools’ funding sources and to provide quantitative data to support the principals verbal comments made during the interviews.

5. Results

The following results are presented in four main themes, school objectives, budget process and decision-making, local funding sources, and pressures, constraints and challenges.

5.1 School objectives

Most schools had “raising the levels of academic achievement of their students” as their primary objective, with many identifying a focus on literacy, numeracy and ICT. However, the low decile school in this study described its objectives a differently as “to nurture and grow quality learning for the whole family not just the students”. Challenges to achieving their objectives were very similar for three schools, with most describing the lack of financial resources or funding as the main challenge. However, the low decile school did not see the lack of funding as a challenge but as an opportunity to think of innovative ways of doing things to meet their objectives.