Executive Directive
Debt and Cash Management
Stewardship
Objective
The Executive Directive – Debt and Cash Management outlines how Principals must plan and manage the schools cash flow and debt levels to ensure the school remains financially sustainable in the context of Catholic Education Western Australia Limited’s (CEWA) overall system debt limit.
Sources of authority
CECWA Preamble – Effective 1 February 2021
Catholic Education Commission Western Australia Stewardship Policy – Effective February 2021.
Principles
- The principle of co-responsibility applies to the allocation of limited financial resources for debt servicing assistance made to schools from the Co-responsibility Building Fund (CBF) and the Australian Education Act 2013 (Cth) Recurrent Funding Amount for interest repayments on capital loans.
- Principals are responsible for accounting and administering all sources of income and expenditure and must maintain a balanced school budget.
- Principals are responsible for setting the Building Levy to be paid by parents/guardians consistent with CEWA recommendations.
- A Debt Servicing Assistance subsidy paid to a school from the Co-responsibility Building Fund is interim financial assistance. Schools are expected to assume responsibility for their own debt as soon as financially possible.
- Principals link available school funds with educational and strategic opportunities that directly benefit students, while also maintaining cash reserves to meet all financial obligations when they fall due.
- Schools that are carrying debt while also holding excess cash reserves should use a proportion of their cash reserves for debt reduction.
- Principal’s must operate within the requirements of CECWA’s Delegations of Authority and the Catholic School Advisory Council Terms of Reference.
- Future system debt commitments shall be guided by the recommendations of the Sustainable Debt Working Party approved by CECWA in 2018.
Directives
- The principal must follow the CEWA Debt Management Procedures
- The principal must follow the CEWA Cash Management Procedures