grants.
Queens High School principal Julie Anderson said the school's Dunedin City Council rates bill had increased by nearly 200% since 2000 and it was an increase in operations expenses which was not covered by government funding.
"Like all other schools, we need to be very prudent in our budgeting. "We're feeling the pressure.''
Mrs Anderson said the Government had spent several years researching the operations costs faced by schools.
"But so far, we haven't had direct input into increasing the amount of operations grant funding to meet the increasing costs of rising support staff costs, ICT [information and communication technologies], and some of the utility costs.''
Otago Secondary Principals Association chairman, and Otago Boys High School rector, Clive Rennie said the cost of fuel alone was having a significant impact on the budgets of many of the region's schools.
Mr Rennie said Otago Boys High School used gas and coal to heat its buildings - including the boarding hostel - and, in the past 12 months, the cost of these fuels had increased by 30%.
While the Ministry of Education had a mechanism in place to cover any increased costs in heating for schools in the annual operations grants, the increase in the cost of heating the hostel was not covered, he said.
Utilities such as water, sewerage and refuse collection at the hostel had also increased significantly and were not covered by the grant.
Mr Rennie said it was possible to raise the accommodation fees to cover the increased expenses, but there was a limit to how far they could be raised before it became financially unviable for pupils to board there.
The cost of information technology equipment was also on the rise and was putting a strain on school budgets.
"We have to have modern equipment so that students are equipped to go out into a modern economy.
"All of these increased costs have to come out of our operations grant,'' he said.
Mr Rennie criticised the Government for being slow to react to the situation and called for an increase to schools' operations grants to match the rise in operations expenses.
He said there had been plenty of research showing schools need more money, but the ministry had not yet responded.
"If we don't get reasonable increases in our grants, one of the options for schools could be cuts to classroom resources.''
Taieri College principal Christina Herrick said she believed schools could also be indirectly affected by the rises in fuel, interest rates and groceries.
"I would anticipate some families will be financially challenged by increases in grocery prices, fuel and interest rates.
The increases could tip some families living on the margin over the edge.''
She believed a time might come when parents struggling financially in the economic climate could decide not to pay voluntary school fees, which would only compound the situation for schools.
Ministry of Education schools resourcing policy senior manager Anna Cook said the ministry recently reviewed operations grant funding for schools and the results of the review were under consideration by Education Minister Chris Carter.
