Two local schools have appealed Ministry of Education decisions to increase their decile ratings.
In November last year, Green Island School was notified its decile would be raised from 4 to 6, and Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Otepoti was told its decile would increase from 3 to 4.
Green Island School principal Steve Hayward said the change had left his school about $10,000 per year out of pocket, and he questioned the logic behind the ministry's decision, because there had been no major changes in the Green Island community.
''It's unbelievable. You can't say there's a new housing development here, or there's a heap of new people living here, or the incomes of people have gone up.
''$10,000 per year - that money's got to come from somewhere.
''This is real money for teacher aides and support programmes for children.''
Nine of the greater Taieri's 16 schools had decile ratings increases in the review, and based on present rolls, funding at the nine affected schools was expected to fall by more than $70,000 a year.
However, Green Island School and Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Otepoti were the only schools to appeal the new decile ratings.
Otago Primary Principals' Association chairwoman and Silverstream School principal Elizabeth Cleverley said her school's decile moved from 4 to 6 and it was expected to lose more than $15,000 per year, but the school had not appealed the new rating.
''It would require a lot of work for an unlikely change of outcome,'' she said.
Deciles are calculated by examining five socioeconomic factors in a school's community: household incomes, occupation, household crowding, educational qualifications and income support.
The ministry uses decile ratings to allocate additional funding, which enables schools to overcome barriers to learning faced by pupils from low socioeconomic homes.
A decile is a 10% grouping and about 10% of schools are in each decile.
Decile 1 schools are the 10% of schools with the highest proportion of pupils from low socioeconomic communities, whereas decile 10 schools are the 10% of schools with the lowest proportion of these pupils from poorer homes.
The lower a school's decile rating, the more decile-based funding it gets to provide additional resources to support their pupils' learning needs.
A decile neither indicates the overall socioeconomic mix of the pupils attending a school, nor measures the standard of education delivered at a school.
The results of the schools' appeals are imminent.
