Parent Payments

Finance requirements

School budgeting and reporting for parent payments and financial contributions must follow the procedures outlined in the Finance Manual for Victorian Government Schools (Finance Manual) and the Parent Payments policy. These include, but are not limited to:

• school councils must approve, in a timely manner, any request for contributions or payments from parents that the school develops
• any contributions and payments must be recorded in CASES21
• receipts must be issued immediately to parents upon contribution or payment
• records of contributions and payments must be kept confidential
• schools must not raise invoices or enter voluntary financial contributions (including all curriculum contributions and other contributions) into CASES21 until they have been received
• schools must not request late payment fees or offer ‘pay-on-time discounts’, for financial contributions or extra-curricular items and activities.

Curriculum and other contributions

Schools cannot consider non-payment of a request for curriculum contributions or other contributions as an outstanding payment as parents are not obliged to make a contribution.

Schools can issue personalised reminder notices for curriculum contributions and other contributions no more than once per term. Each notice can include contribution requests previously made for the current school year as well as new requests for upcoming activities occurring throughout the current school year. Contribution requests should not include unpaid requests carried forward from the previous school year.

Extra-curricular items and activities

If a parent has agreed to purchase an extra-curricular item or activity, but has not made payment, schools may send invoices or statements up to once per term for outstanding amounts.

Schools cannot deny students access to extra-curricular items and activities that parents have purchased while following up on other outstanding payments.

Schools cannot deny students access to an extra-curricular item or activity that has been purchased, regardless of whether parents have made a curriculum or other contribution.

Schools must consider assistance to families experiencing financial hardship on a confidential and case-by-case basis. Schools should also exercise discretion prior to generating reminder notices for unpaid items for families experiencing hardship.

Refer to Financial Help for Families for further information regarding schools assisting parents experiencing financial hardship.

The costs of extra-curricular items and activities can include:

• cost of transport, food, entry fees and accommodation for students and teachers
• merchant fees associated with electronic payment transactions
• pro-rata salaries of education support staff, where these staff are used for provision of personalised tuition (for example, instrumental music lessons)
• cost of casual relief teachers engaged for the purpose of supporting the activity during its operation, either on or off school premises.

The costs of extra-curricular items and activities cannot include the salaries of department teaching staff.

Use of third-party providers

When using third-party providers to collect voluntary contributions schools must ensure:

• the timing of when the school receives the funds from the third party is made clear and agreed upon
• refunds are made and recorded in CASES21 and not facilitated through the third party.

Further guidance on third-party providers is found in the Parent Payments Policy Financial Transaction Guide (DOCX) (staff login required).

Payment plans and flexible payment arrangements

Schools can offer parents and carers the ability to make voluntary contributions flexibly throughout the year.

If a parent wishes to pay by instalments, each payment is viewed as a stand-alone contribution and schools cannot enforce payment of any further instalments.

Schools using third-party software to facilitate parent payments must ensure that options to pay in instalments meet the criteria outlined in the Parent Payments Policy Financial Transaction Guide (DOCX) (staff login required).

Parental disputes

Where there is a payment dispute between persons who share parental responsibility (for example, separated parents), the school should avoid determining the dispute or adopting sides. Schools can send duplicate invoices to all people with parental responsibility at their respective addresses (without disclosing the address of one parent to the other) and ask parents to decide who is responsible for making payment and in what proportions.

If only a partial payment is made for an extra-curricular item or activity the school is not required to provide the student with access to the item or activity. Schools should follow their local school refund policy when determining under what circumstances partial payments should be refunded.

Refer to Decision Making Responsibilities for Students for more information regarding parental disputes.

Refunds

Schools have the discretion to provide refunds to families and should do so where it is reasonable and fair (for example, if the school has not incurred a cost).

If the school has incurred costs, the school should act reasonably and take into consideration the Financial Help for Families policy and relevant arrangements, including support for families experiencing hardship. For example, schools should refund families for unavoidable event cancellations if a family experiences a crisis or sudden serious illness and the student can no longer attend the event.

If the school decides to provide a refund, then parents need to agree and advise the school where the refund should be paid. If that agreement cannot be reached, the refund is usually paid into the account from which the money came. Where the payment was made in cash, the school should wait until the parents reach an agreement and advise the school.

Seeking payment for damage to school property

In most cases, a parent/carer is not legally responsible for damage caused by a student at school. Refer to Claims for Property Damage and Medical Expenses for further information on this.

However, schools have the discretion to request that parents voluntarily contribute to the cost of damaged items owned by the school if their child was responsible for the damage.

Schools must continue to facilitate student access to the curriculum regardless of whether payment for damages are made. Before requesting payment for damaged goods, schools should consider factors including financial hardship and their Student Engagement policy.

Students and their parents are responsible for returning all items to the school in the same condition they were made available, subject to standard wear and tear.

Standard wear and tear refers to normal deterioration of items from typical everyday use (for example, ripped pages in a textbook, scratches or scuff marks on stationery items). Standard wear and tear can also be agreed upon between the school and parents.

If a student damages school infrastructure or buildings (for example, windows), schools should not request payments for damages. However, schools can invite all parents to make a contribution towards repair (for example, building fund).

Tax deductions

Curriculum contributions are not tax deductible when received by mainstream schools. Other contributions received by mainstream schools are only tax deductible when they are explicitly provided to funds which have been endorsed by the Australian Taxation Office and have a Deductible Gift Recipients status (for example, building funds or school library funds).

All Victorian government specialist schools have a Deductible Gift Recipient status. Curriculum contributions and other contributions received by these schools are tax deductible when requested in accordance with the Parent Payments policy. Mainstream schools operating a specialist campus or stream are considered mainstream schools for tax purposes.

Refer to the Finance Manual or the Deductible Gift Recipient Funds tax factsheet (DOCX) (staff login required) for further information.