Final pay when ending a job

The Ministry is working to resolve a historic issue that has led to some school employees not receiving final pay due when they finished their job.

Overview

Some school employees did not receive the correct final pay when they finished their job because of payment errors made from the introduction of Novopay in 2012 through to the end of the 2020 school year. Processes have been put in place to fix the issue.

The Ministry has paid current school employees affected by the errors and is now paying former employees.

If you are an affected former school employee, we are trying to contact you via email, text and/or letter to ask you to register on the Schools Payroll Remediation Portal. We need you to confirm your bank details, provide us with your tax information and verify your identify, so we can process your payment.

If you are a former school employee and your contact details have changed since you left the school sector, please register on the Schools Payroll Remediation Portal to make sure we can contact you about final pay or other schools payroll remediation payments if we need to.

Schools Payroll Remediation Portal(external link)

If you had more than one job (that is, multiple contracts with one or more schools), you will be paid for all jobs affected by the final pay errors.

Payments

Current employees

If you are affected by the errors and you are a current school employee, the payment has been made directly into the main bank account used by schools payroll to pay you.

Some school employees

If you are affected by the errors and are no longer a school employee, the payment will be made into the bank account you nominate in the Schools Payroll Remediation Portal(external link). You will be sent a payslip from Education Payroll Limited, which will be password protected with your Ministry of Education number.

If you no longer have a New Zealand bank account, please log a query through the Schools Payroll Remediation Portal. Our team will get in touch to explain the process for making a payment to an overseas bank account.

If you are acting on behalf of a former employee or for the estate of a deceased employee, the payment process is the same.

Tax implications

If you have received a payment into your bank account, we have paid income tax and any other applicable deductions (for example, student loan or KiwiSaver) from your payment based on your tax code at the time of payment.

We encourage you to contact any relevant organisations, such as Inland Revenue or the Ministry of Social Development, for advice about whether your taxable payment affects any agreement you have with them about your current earnings, benefits, child support or any other matters.

More information

Find out more about our schools payroll remediation programme. 

Contact us

 You can also contact the team by:

Keeping yourself safe from phishing scams

Phishing is when someone uses an email, text or phone call to try to get access to sensitive information (like bank account numbers and passwords).

For schools payroll remediation payments, we will never ask you for your bank account login and password. The information you receive from us will direct you to the Ministry of Education’s website.

Phishing scammers will claim to be from a legitimate organisation, and often have email addresses or websites that look very real. They'll often ask you to claim a prize, check your details, or tell you that your account is expiring or needs to be checked.

Email phishing scams – Netsafe(external link)

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