Property Maintenance Grant for state school maintenance work
As board, you use the Property Maintenance Grant to pay for maintenance work on Ministry-owned buildings and facilities at your school. This funding doesn't cover capital work or operational non-property expenses.
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As boards are responsible for the financial governance of their schools, it is their responsibility to ensure PMG funding is used according to the rules listed below. It is also up to the board to ensure their information is correctly stated in the Ministry’s Helios Portal, which is used to calculate your funding.
- Key Property Maintenance Grant information
- Buildings qualifying for PMG
- Calculating funding for maintenance work
- Using the correct funding source for maintenance work
- Further information
Key Property Maintenance Grant information
What is it: The Property Maintenance Grant (PMG) is provided by the Ministry as part of your operational funding.
What is it for: The funding is for schools to pay for maintenance work on Ministry-funded property.
How do I access it: The funding is paid straight into your school's bank account in quarterly instalments, along with your operational funding.
For more details: PMG information is found in the Property Portal, and is updated twice yearly in December (indicative) and July (actual).
Maintenance includes
- General maintenance and painting for school buildings
- Ground maintenance
- Swimming pool maintenance
Read more at the Property Maintenance page.
Urgent health and safety work
You don't get additional PMG funding for unplanned, urgent health and safety work, such as repairing a broken pavement that could be a trip hazard. Do this work immediately using your PMG.
Non-urgent health and safety maintenance work should be prioritised in your 10YPP. Good maintenance will help prevent the need for urgent work.
Your caretaker
Caretaker wages are paid from your operational funding. Do not include work that will be done by your caretaker in your 10YPP or use PMG to pay for the salary.
Buildings qualifying for PMG funding
Only Ministry-funded buildings and facilities qualify for PMG funding. For instance:
- where the community owns property, the community group must pay for its maintenance, and the lease agreement should cover this arrangement (visit our Leasing or hiring school land and buildings to third parties page)
- where you have paid for property with board funding, such as with money raised by fundraising, you must use board funding to pay for its maintenance.
Property ownership is recorded in the Ministry's K2 system.
Calculating funding for maintenance work
We calculate your PMG based on:
- gross area (which is the external footprint of a building of Ministry-owned or integrated area)
- square metres of painted exterior walls
- cubic capacity of Ministry-owned or integrated swimming pools
- the 'corrosion factor' for schools in areas where buildings are subject to very high corrosion from extreme weather and salt spray (it provides a top-up for these schools to carry out the more frequent maintenance needed)
- the 'isolation factor', which is linked to the isolation index used in operational funding (it's an adjustment for schools in isolated areas that have extra costs due to their remoteness).
The PMG is calculated for your land up to a maximum size for:
- primary — 2.5 hectares
- intermediate — 4 hectares
- secondary — 8 hectares
- composite — 6 hectares.
Note: Your PMG isn't affected by other issues such as where your students come from.
Correct information needed to calculate your funding
Your school property information is needed to calculate your funding. Keeping this information up to date in the Ministry's Helios portal is important for PMG calculations.
Contact your local Ministry office if you:
- think your school’s information is incomplete
- filled out an asset update form for a new building incorrectly.
If you received insufficient funding because of incorrect information, talk to your property advisor. You may be entitled to a reimbursement of up to a maximum of 3 years’ worth of funding. Back payments will be paid out along with your next operational funding grant.
Using the correct funding source for maintenance work
For budgeting purposes, you need to understand the difference between capital and maintenance work. Assess the amount of change required to help you decide whether a task is capital or maintenance work.
For example, if:
- a section of sewerage pipe needs replacing, this is maintenance, but
- if all or most of the pipe needs replacing (effectively requiring a new system), this is capital replacement.
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