Ministry rejects school's claim for spray compo

1.00pm

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has rejected Fraser High School's bid for thousands of dollars in compensation after it claimed staff were left sick by moth spray.

The Hamilton school approached the ministry for compensation when staff sickness resulted in absences at the school during, and after last year's Asian gypsy moth spray programme.

Fraser High principal Martin Elliott accused MAF of distorting the reasons it gave for not paying out up to $13,000 in costs.

MAF said it had rejected the claim because the taxpayer had already covered the school in the form of Education Ministry payments.

Mr Elliott said the Education Ministry had held up its end of the bargain by making a payment of $10,000 for the costs incurred at the school.

But MAF's director of forest biosecurity, Peter Thompson, said if any payment was made to Fraser High, the school would be effectively "double-dipping".

Mr Thompson said an independent investigation had shown there was ample opportunity for the school to make use of resources that would have alleviated staff costs during the aerial campaign.

"Ministry of Education records show that at the time of the aerial operations in Hamilton, Fraser High had considerable credits for sick leave available -- 512 days in total," Mr Thompson said.

Relief funding rested with the Education Ministry, not MAF, he said.

But Mr Elliott rejected that, and said MAF was basing its view on old information, which was not a true reflection of costs.

In addition, the school was out of pocket for support staff, who were not covered by the Education Ministry.

The Fraser High claim is one of 19 lodged by organisations or individuals who claim they were affected by the spray programme.

Compensation claims run into tens of thousands of dollars.

Seven claims have now been considered, while the remaining 12 are outstanding.

Mr Thompson said he would not release information on whether any compensation had been paid out.

- NZPA