quarta-feira, 30 de junho de 2010

School got $400,000 'hush payment'

THE NSW government allegedly paid an inner-Sydney school a $400,000 "inducement" to keep quiet.
The school had concerns over a project under the $16.2 billion schools stimulus program.
The principal and P&C president of Abbotsford Public School yesterday told a NSW upper house inquiry into the scheme that their school received the money after campaigning against poor decision making, poor value for money and inflexibility under the scheme.
P&C president Rob Vellar said: "After we sought some assistance from the opposition . . . then $400,000 came out, so we suspected at the time that it was an inducement of sorts and they are the words that our meeting has minuted. We were left to assume this was money that had mysteriously appeared after some long and sustained campaigning".
Mr Vellar said the 300-pupil school had received $2.5 million in BER funds, which it had hoped to use to build four additional classrooms to house its growing student population.
The NSW Education Department decided the school's existing four-classroom building should be demolished to make way for the four new classrooms and a 50sqm program-specific room.
"Put simply we had a set of classrooms that the teachers were in tears over losing and which the teachers union was happy to have their members teaching in," Mr Vellar said. "We had a set of classrooms that simply didn't need knocking down and for $2.5m we'd be no better off for space, while we had kids being taught in the corridors because we had already run out of classrooms. While the BER guidelines indicated community consultation, we think we got exactly the opposite to that, we think we were ignored".
Following a public campaign by Abbotsford over its treatment under the BER, the state government allocated the school $400,000 for a second specific program room, in addition to $600,000 already pledged to re-turf the school's oval.
The handout was described as "hush money" yesterday by NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell, who accused a Labor MP of using threats to silence disgruntled parents and staff.
But NSW Education Minister Verity Firth denied the allegations, labelling such claims "false and absurd".
"The school has received $400,000 for the additional project funded by the NSW government," Ms Firth said.
"It was agreed to by the school, and was at its request".
The inquiry heard that, under NSW government guidelines, a school with 199 students allocated the standard "14 core school hall" under the scheme would be forced to fit four students per square metre on the floor of the building if all pupils were present.
Members of the the Mount St Thomas Public School P&C told the inquiry they were outraged at the $2.5m price tag of a school hall that could not house all the school's students on chairs.
NSW Infrastructure Co-ordinator-General Bob Leece, who also fronted the inquiry, declined to comment on the design of the school halls under the scheme, which he said was a matter for the education department.