The sub committee as formed at the September 16th General meeting.
We attended a meeting with senior management on September 18, 2009 to review the current situation.
Our first meeting as a committee was to established our intended outcome, scope, time line and information we intended to request from the District was on September 21, 2009
Since that initial meeting we have:
Requested the board to receive information form the committee through the Secretary Treasure
Requested the following information from the district:
- A copy of the minutes taken at the meeting on Friday September 18th, This will allow us to review all suggestions made and possibly expand on or present some further options;
- A five year comparative trial balance. After further discussion among the committee members we feel this will greatly assist us with our review and allow us to provide informative input towards the current situation. As accountants in public practice we are aware that this is easily provided to the School Boards auditors;
- A copy of the Grant Thornton management letters that accompanied the 2007/2008/2009 audited financial statements;
- A copy of all SUB programs;
- A copy of the last 5 years Annual Facilities Grant (AFG) Report and the Local Capital Report.
- A copy of the scope and engagement letters for the 2007/2008/2009 audits
At the October 21st, 2009 general meeting we announced we would be setting up a survey to assist us getting feed back from the parents of the district.
On November 19th, 2009 we attended the Dialogue on Debt hosted by the LTA at the Langley Golf Centre. Our purpose was to obtain information related to our survey.
At the December 1st board meeting we asked the board to instruct senior management to provide us with our requested information.
On December 11, 2009 we meet with Rich Coleman and on January 8, 2010 we meet with Mary Polak. Both parties were open to our concerns and provided additional insight. They have both offered to assist us in different ways should we require additional assistance. We have not pursued these options at this time.
We provided the board with our recommendations related to amending SD35 Policy 3203 Financial reports and statements.
In January we contacted the Ministry of Education and spoken with an Ian Aaron from the School District Financial Reporting Branch. Unfortunately he was not as helpful as we had hoped. We are still going to pursue this avenue as we have been given another name, Brita Gunderson-Bryden to contact.
We have filed and received a response to our FOI. Unfortunately only limited documents were provided.
On January 12th we submitted our recommendation to the board related to the proposed financial reporting policy.
On February 22, 2010 we meet with the temporary secretary treasure Dave Greenan, his assistant Tally and Cheryl to review the requested information and clarify the reasons for the lack of information. They will be contacting their auditors again to determine if requested information is easily obtained from their records.
On March 17th, 2010 we received the 2008/2009 trial balance form the district but due to the timing have not yet had an opportunity to review it in detail.
In February and March we reviewed the results of the survey and at the March 31st general we provided feed back related to the survey in summarized form.
The Secretary Treasure and his assistant attended the March 31, 2010 general meeting to summarize the results of the changes over the past 9 months or so. They have identified many areas and of those identified have assured us that new systems are being implemented but with anything will take some time before all items have been thoroughly reviewed.
On April 13th we submitted our recommendation to the board related to the proposed audit committee.
Committee Reports
