A few things missed

Since our blogging has been in such a state of disarray for the past couple of months, it is difficult to decide (in retrospect!) what is worth putting up on the blog and what we should just admit to having missed and therefore discard.

Newsworthy for us was the waterfall, not too far from Wanganui which we photographed on one of our first trips to check out the town prior to moving here. Raukawa falls were really worth the stop on the winding para para road and so we were horribly disappointed to see that in January, Mother Nature has once again stepped in and changed the landscape. No more falls bar a little narrow funnel visible on the far right of what used to be the wide crashing waterfall.

 

 

THE TEACHER PAY SCHEME DEBACLE

About six months ago the government rolled out a brand, spanking new pay scheme for educators across New Zealand.

 

From day one, there have been endless complaints, tragic stories and irate principals and administrative staff who have spent literally thousands of man-hours trying to get their staff either 1) paid, or 2) correctly paid or 3) not paid - if the staff member did not actually exist!

Some teachers have been

'lost' - ie not paid at all. Others are finding extra dollars in their accounts, or overpaid by literally thousands of dollars! 

It's one unholy shambles and the powers that be are (after rolling a few not so impressive heads) pointing fingers at all and sundry and solving very little!

 

Most recently, the absurdity of it all reached new heights when a couple of teachers dotted around the country had their 'details' handed over to debt collectors to reclaim the twenty odd dollars they had each been overpaid!!

HOW EMBARRASING!!!!!

 

Many schools will begin the new year out of pocket as they scramble to reclaim thousands of dollars siphoned out of their accounts through incorrect Novopay payments.

While the Ministry of Education was pleased the last pay of 2012 yesterday "went more smoothly than last week's", about 300 school staff were left without their holiday pay.

And the ministry was still "correlating information" on overpayments made to staff.

Waikanae School principal Bevan Campbell has seen $38,000 taken from the school's account to incorrectly pay support staff or even ex-staff in the past three Novopay cycles. Errors were minimal to begin with but it had become "an absolute disgrace".

Fourteen staff were overpaid yesterday- some given about $2700 when they should have been given about $19, and one paid $3241.56 when they were owed nothing.

It placed the school in financial risk, heading into 2013 about $38,000 out of pocket.

"Thirty-five thousand dollars was removed and placed in to 14 people's bank accounts and there is no mechanism that we can see to retrieve that money and put it back.

"I don't even think they can track it. They don't even recognise it's a mistake in the first place."

Mr Campbell even notified Talent 2 about the errors in advance.

"They have had eight days to sort it and they didn't. Even then they couldn't get it right.

"The system is so terribly, terribly flawed - full of bugs."

He now had to track down the staff to ensure the money was not spent.

Schools were given from 5am to 11am on Thursday to analyse the final report, identify errors and stop the payments from going through.

But it was unlikely with school closing up for the year and many already on break, he said.

"We're left behind to clean up the mess. It's an absolute disgrace.

"I'm extremely annoyed that we have to do this. The people responsible for letting this system loose need to be held accountable."

Education Ministry chief information officer Leanne Gibson said more than 73,000 permanent school staff received their final pay yesterday.

She was pleased the "pay run went more smoothly than last week's".

About 300 school staff owed holiday pay did not receive it, but she assured them they would before Christmas.

She "appreciated" concern from schools about some overpayments to staff, and the ministry would work with them on that issue. It would pay staff directly if they were not paid or significantly underpaid.

Labour's acting education spokesman Chris Hipkins said it was "not good enough that ministers are lying on the beach or busy gangsta rapping on radio" while teachers waited to be paid what they were owed.

The above article is a little behind the times, but gives you a bit of an idea of the shambles that has been the new novopay scheme!! Developed in Australia and designed to 'fix' and 'update' all the education ministry's payment problems - hmmm...... what can be said?

Dis al!