Banking staffing

Banking Staffing gives boards some flexibility in timing the use of staffing entitlement. Each year is standalone and balances cannot be carried through to the following year, but schools can, within one year, choose to:

• anticipate up to 10% of their staffing entitlement - using it in advance or going into overdraft
• save up staffing to use later in the year - under-using or banking
• operate staffing usage on a full year basis - no saving and no overdraft in each pay period.

Conditions

The following conditions apply:

• The board is responsible for managing and monitoring usage and for keeping within its overall staffing entitlement for the banking staffing year, using the time period for balancing the staffing usage from the previous year end position as necessary.
• A board can either anticipate up to 10% staffing above entitlement during the year or save staffing entitlement to use later in the year.
• Staffing used in advance of entitlement must be made up or 'repaid' within the same banking staffing year or within the time period for balancing the staffing usage from the previous year end position. Overuse remaining at the end of the time period will be recovered by the Ministry out of the board's operational funding. For the 2010 year the recovery rate is $63,000. This rate is subject to change each year.
• The time period for balancing the staffing usage is pay periods [y]23 to [y]26 in respect of the banking staffing year ended [y]22.
• If, at the end of the banking staffing year, a board has exceeded the 10% limit for using staffing in advance, permission to anticipate staffing entitlement the next year may be withheld by the Ministry.

Essential information:

• Make sure all instructions to Payroll are accurate. It is important to correctly identify the salary source for teachers (Teachers Salaries or Bulk Grant) if any benefits of 'banking' are to be maximised.
• Check that every Ministry banking staffing report (issued fortnightly) is correct.
• Make sure all decisions on banking staffing as agreed by the board are minuted.
• Inform Payroll immediately if adjustments are required to fix errors or if there is a change to the salary source of any teacher.
• Holiday pay and ACC can cause variations to the staffing balance. Check with the Ministry/Payroll when these are noted. Also check out the Banking Staffing Holiday Pay website.
• Banking staffing information is financial information. It will be audited. The documentation must be kept for seven years for Income Tax requirements.
• Use the modelling spreadsheet (bottom of the page) to explore possible banking options.
• Seriously consider whether trying to use small amounts of banked staffing is worth the bother.
• Be proactive. Follow up anomalies quickly with Payroll. Adjustments can take time to get sorted.
• Log phone calls and file all correspondence on banking staffing so that a "history" of communications can be traced if necessary.

Holiday pay:

How holiday pay is treated for banking staffing purposes and the extent to which holiday pay counts as usage against a school’s banking staffing entitlement. The accompanying download, Holiday pay graph, sets out potential holiday pay FTTE usage.

Vacation periods are included in banking staffing usage.

Please note that schools' FTTE entitlements cover the full staffing year, including school vacations. Schools should take this into account when planning staff usage, noting that the holiday pay charged to a school's staffing when a teacher resigns/ceases usually balances out over the summer holiday period.

Teaching staff are entitled to be paid holiday pay on resignation/cessation from the teaching service. This includes long term relieving staff when they complete a fixed term employment period. The holiday pay calculation is based upon how much of the current school year the teacher has worked, and how much "holiday pay" they have already received due to school vacations throughout that year.

The holiday pay graph download (available at the bottom of the page) shows how the Ministry is treating holiday pay and its impact on banking staffing. The staffing costs that a school is charged for the holiday pay of a resigning teacher is capped in Terms 1, 2 and 3.

This capping routine does not cover all incidences and some overlap of the FTTE usage calculations for holiday pay for a resigning teacher and their replacement may occur. This can occur where a staff member resigns from the service, is paid holiday pay, and the vacant position is filled by a teacher in continuous service recruited from another school. In such situations the newly recruited teacher brings with them their full holiday pay entitlement. When notified by the school, the Ministry in these cases will manually adjust the school's banking staffing usage.

Note, however, there will be no Ministry adjustment where a staff member resigns from the service and is replaced by a teacher who is not in continuous service.

The FTTE conversion chart can be found in Chapter 2 of the Funding, Staffing and Allowances Handbook. This chart breaks FTTEs down into hours and weeks.