How allowances are calculated#

Salary and management allowance entitlements are calculated using the formula prescribed in the Education (School Staffing) Order (the Staffing Order).

Restrictions on salary units and management allowances#

Schools are not permitted to allocate salary units, middle management and/or senior management allowances above the entitlement set out in the Staffing Order.

If you have fully allocated your salary units and management allowances, you can use recruitment, retention and responsibility (3R) payments.

Recruitment, retention and responsibility (3R) payments#

These recognise an extra responsibility a teacher has taken on or to help you achieve recruitment or retention goals. This allowance is paid to teachers out of your bulk grant.

More information is on the EdPay website.

Recruitment, retention and responsibility payment – Education Payroll

Tracking use of units and allowances#

Schools are responsible for tracking their use of salary units and management allowances against entitlement.

You can see your usage in your fortnightly Staffing Usage and Expenditure (SUE) report. This shows the units and allowances that you have allocated to teachers.

You can check you are within entitlement by comparing it to your staffing entitlement in Pourato.

Correcting over-use through attrition#

If your school has over-allocated units or management allowances, you should first seek to use attrition to correct any over-allocation.

This could include:

• not reallocating units when a teacher with units or allowances ceases employment at the school
• not renewing any fixed term units or allowances which expire – your school could consider a 3R payment instead.

Salary protection#

If you are required to remove permanent or fixed-term salary units or management allowances from staff to stay within your entitlement, you may need to pay salary protection to impacted teachers. The cost of salary protection will be paid from your operational funding. You should seek employment advice on the process.

Where to find support#

The New Zealand School Boards Association's GovHub can provide support and guidance if your school needs help to reduce your allocation of salary units and management allowances.

Contact their advisory and support centre.

Freephone (NZ only): 0800 782 435

Email: [email protected]

Quarterly monitoring#

Monitoring will be completed on a quarterly basis. Your average payroll usage will be compared to your average entitlement for the quarter to determine if you are over allocating.

Schools that are overusing by 1 or more units will be sent a letter that shows usage against entitlement by pay period. Schools can ask to have their reported overuse reviewed.

In 2026, we are monitoring only. We will not recover overuse until 2027.

This phased approach will provide you with a full year to track your usage and make adjustments to stay within your entitlement from 2027.

Salary units that are allocated to specific attached positions are not included in the monitoring process. These units are not included in schools’ entitlement units but are allocated separately to teachers in that position.

Timeframe#

We will allow 2 additional pay runs for any corrections, late transactions or retrospective adjustments related to the monitoring period to be made in payroll before beginning our review of schools’ usage.

Quarter 1 (PP23–PP01)

Monitoring period: 21 January 2026 to 14 April 2026

Reports sent to schools overusing by: 30 April 2026

Request review by: 14 May 2026

Quarter 2 (PP02 – PP08)

Monitoring period: 15 April 2026 to 21 July 2026

Reports sent to schools overusing by: 2 September 2026

Request review by: 16 September 2026

Quarter 3 (PP09 – PP15)

Monitoring period: 22 July 2026 to 27 October 2026

Reports sent to schools overusing by: 8 December 2026

Request review by: 21 December 2026

Quarter 4 (PP16 – PP22)

Monitoring period: 28 October 2026 to 2 February 2027

Reports sent to schools overusing by: 18 March 2027

Request review by: 1 April 2027

Recovery of overuse#

From 2027, overuse will be recovered from schools’ quarterly operational funding instalments at the current rates in the applicable collective agreement.

The first recovery for quarter 1 2027 will be from the July 2027 operational grant funding instalment.

From 2027, your school must bring your units and allowances allocation within entitlement. We will continue to monitor for non-compliance. Where required we will inform schools and recover overspends. We will advise GovHub to work with schools to reach compliance and manage any employment processes resulting from overuse.