Two Charter Schools Bounce Payroll, Somehow Still Afford $50,000 a Year for the Curriculum

Middle School West Auckland has racked up $183,000 in debt to the Ministry of Education after repeatedly bouncing its own payroll, and South Auckland Middle School has been running on arrears of its own. Neither shortfall stopped either school paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in curriculum and management fees, including $50,000 annually for the rights to use curriculum content. Whatever else was missing, the invoice for the paperwork always seemed to clear.

Governance fared no better. At South Auckland Middle School, the board illegally replaced its Villa Education Trust-nominated members with three Elim Christian Education Trust representatives in April 2025, “through an unknown process,” and installed a new presiding member with no legal provision for doing so. The Ministry declined the board’s request to hand special character oversight to Elim, on the basis that the school is, on paper, secular and state-funded. At Middle School West Auckland, attendance sat under 40 percent and enrolment had fallen to around 135 students, while the board was found “unwilling and incapable” of fixing any of it.

Commissioners have now been installed at both schools, in July and August. The Auditor-General flagged a $450,000 payment to Villa Education Trust back in 2018, which means this is not new information so much as a sequel. The curriculum fees, at least, were paid on time.