Last update - 00:00 10/08/2007
Rahat parents seek to halt transfer of school funds to town
By Or Kashti, Haaretz Correspondent
A group of parents from the city of Rahat will ask the High Court of Justice early next week to demand that educational funds stop going to the Bedouin municipality, and instead be transferred into a separate account.
The request follows a report commissioned by the Education Ministry, which found major faults in the management of the municipality.
The law governing local authorities stipulates that the education minister has the power to appoint "a person to manage educational budgetary funds" in cases where the local authority's use of the money is not in line with ministry intentions.
The High Court petition was put together by parent organizations from several elementary schools in Rahat, in cooperation with the Arab Education Forum in the Negev and with the help of Gadeer Nicola, a lawyer from the human rights program of Tel Aviv University's law school.
The petition relies on the Education Ministry report, compiled by ministry accountants at the beginning of the year, which says that the money received by the local authority is not being transferred in a timely fashion to the schools.
The report found that the Rahat municipality was holding in its possession NIS 1.2 million intended for the education system. It also revealed that the "municipality budgets for manpower (custodians, secretaries), while it allocates a smaller number of workers for schools."
"Despite the grave and illegal situation," the parents' petition reads, "the education minister [Yuli Tamir] has not yet deemed it appropriate to use her authority to call a halt to the transfer of educational funds to the municipality of Rahat, and to transfer them instead to an account that will be managed by someone appointed by the ministry."
"The education ministry is ignoring the problem. Clerks are, on one hand, acknowledging faults in the transfer of the money, and on the other - aren't doing anything," says Haled al-Talalka, chairman of one school's parents' committee.
"We aren't asking for more money, just for what we deserve," he continued.
The Rahat municipality would not respond to news of the petition on Thursday. In the Education Ministry's report, municipality sources said that "the monthly transfers to schools were carried out late, because of cash flow problems, but the gaps were closed."
Despite a string of letters sent by parents to the Education Ministry in the last two years, the ministry issued a statement saying, "No complaints have been received from parent representatives on money management problems. If a complaint of this nature is received, it will be dealt with appropriately."