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The school board is responsible for the financial governance of its school or kura. The Education and Training Act 2020 states a board must perform its functions in a financially responsible way. This includes deciding how operational funding is spent to achieve the objectives specified in your charter.
Education and Training Act 2020 – New Zealand Legislation
What operational funding is
Operational funding is the money your board receives for the day-to-day running of the school or kura.
Your total operational funding entitlement is split into different categories, for example, information and communication technology (ICT) or property maintenance. These are called funding components.
You can view your school or kura's operational funding entitlement in Pourato. Each September, we will publish the indicative operational funding entitlement for your school or kura for the new year. The entitlement is recalculated each quarter.
Finding information in Pourato – Applications and Online Systems
Operational funding components
Read the individual component guidance to find out more about each component.
How we calculate your entitlement
We use the number of students enrolled at your school or kura to calculate operational funding. This is called the resourcing roll.
The resourcing roll data we use depends on the time of year, your school type, and whether we receive your roll count on time.
How we use resourcing rolls to calculate operating funding
Some of the funding components are calculated using variables other than roll counts. To see the input used to calculate some of the component grants in Pourato, click the expand menu button on the Operational Funding table under each quarter column heading.
View the current operational funding rates for all components.
Operational funding rates 2024 and 2025
Operational funding rates 2024 and 2025You can use the school funding calculator to estimate your school's funding entitlement.
Annual adjustment
At the end of the year, we calculate if we need to make an annual adjustment to your operational funding. The adjustment makes sure you have received the correct funding entitlements for the year.
Reasons for an adjustment include:
- changes to funding rates
- roll audits
- roll resubmissions
- Kāhui Ako changes
- updates in a levy during the year.
You will be notified by email if your operational funding is going to be adjusted. The adjustment is made in your next quarter 1 payment instalment and is listed as a line item on the school's Funding Summary - Payments screen in Pourato.
How operational funding is paid
We pay your operational funding on a quarterly basis to your board’s bank account. Your funding entitlement can change over the year, so payment amounts may vary. Instalments are paid on the first working day of the month.
| Month instalment paid | Period covered | Percentage of remaining entitlement paid |
|---|---|---|
| January | January to March | 25% |
| April | April to June | 33.3% |
| July | July to September | 50% |
| October | October to December | 100% |
You will receive a notification email from Pourato when an operational funding instalment or payment plan is approved for payment.
Use the 'bank ref' in Pourato to match the payment to your bank statement. We combine payments and recoveries with the same 'bank ref' into a single payment.
How to change your bank account details
If you need to change the bank account that we pay your operational funding payments into, you must fill out the change of bank account form and send it to us.
Email: [email protected]
Change of bank account