The Northern Territory's anti-corruption watchdog has found a former Arnhem Land school principal corruptly used public funds. 

The Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC) has made a finding of corrupt conduct against Jennifer Lea Sherrington, who was principal of the Milingimbi School between 2015 and 2019.

The ICAC found Ms Sherrington used education funds for the “poorest cohort of students in the country” for personal gain.

Taxpayer funds were spent on unnecessary charter flights, hiring cars for personal shopping,  dinners with family and friends, hiring family members and obtaining a government house for her nephew.

Milingimbi is a remote coastal Aboriginal community located over 400 kilometres east of Darwin. Its school currently has just over 300 students.

Ms Sherrington was found to have made 18 unauthorised trips between Milingimbi and Darwin during 2018 and 2019, at a cost of over $193,000.

“Ms Sherrington used charter travel on a regular basis – without justification or authorisation – for herself and other staff members,” the report said.

The former principal also made a failed attempt to manipulate enrolment and attendance figures to obtain $1.4 million in extra funding, including recording an attendance rate of almost 90 per cent for 2019, when the actual figure was closer to 50 per cent.

“Ms Sherrington was not in the business of education,” the report said.

“She was in the business of manipulating data and herding children to be at school on ‘census’ days to maximise funding from both the NT and Australian governments.”

The ICAC also found that Ms Sherrington had employed her nephew to help boost attendance numbers on these ‘census’ days.

Ms Sherrington has denied all allegations and said working at a remote community school was extremely challenging.

Her lawyer claimed she had a “cogent and exculpatory explanation for each and every allegation” but the ICAC did not hear it. 

The ICAC described her responses as "fanciful" and not believable.

More broadly, the ICAC probe found that these corrupt methods were not isolated to the Milingimbi School, as the NT government’s funding model made it easy for school principals to alter records without oversight.

“Given the disadvantage of the NT's remote population and the requirement for budget repair across NTG [NT government] agencies, it is critical that the [department] determine whether this is a singular incident or systemic,” the ICAC report said.

The NT government's ‘community-led schools’ approach - putting school councils and principals in charge of budget administration - may give communities more say about their education, but the investigation found a lack of training and capacity-building for Milingimbi's school council left Ms Sherrington with “autocratic control” of the school's affairs.

“Ms Sherrington took advantage of the school council's lack of experience and governance literacy,” the report said.

“Devolution of governance arrangements in NT public schools is problematic.”

Commissioner Ken Fleming recommended the NT Education Department review its approach to school autonomy, budgets and resourcing, and to audit school attendance figures for fraud.

He also recommended a review of all government employee housing tenants to make sure they are eligible.

The investigation report noted similar risks could also exist in any part of the NT government’s “local decision-making” housing and health policies.