Prairie Rose Public Schools earns clean financial audit

By Samantha Johnson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on December 6, 2023.

reporter@medicinehatnews.com

Prairie Rose Public Schools has received a clean financial audit, with statements presented to the board on Nov. 28.

Board chair Lois Bedwell was on the audit committee and stated she learned a lot during pre- and post-audit meetings. Accounting firm MNP LLP gave PRPS a clean audit and was impressed with the work done by the financial team. Controller Candice Hintz touched on three of the main schedules in her presentation.

Last year, PRPS received new and initial funding, but only for a few months, and this year it is available for the full 10 months of operations. Badlands Baseball Academy has been incorporated into PRPS operations this year and the division was approved for collegiate funding for the South Alberta Flight Academy.

New this year is the assets retirement obligation (ARO), estimated at a $4.6 million cost to deal with any asset retirement obligation, such as asbestos and septic tanks, at the end of useful life. Most assets are in the schools, which Alberta Education will likely fund when the time comes, but since it’s not confirmed, PRPS must record this cost as a liability. With the ARO, it makes the total liabilities higher than total assets, resulting in a net debt amount due to that change in accounting policies.

Actual revenue was $1,549,994 higher than budget due to increased funding from Alberta Education, increase in fees, increase in interest income, additional donations and ASBIE (Alberta School Boards’ Insurance Exchange) equity return.

Actual expenses were $1,360,545 over budget, which was due to increased support for programming, additional professional development, increased utility costs and expenses incurred due to increased funding.

CFO Ryan Boser asked the board to approve a motion, which was carried, prior to approving the audited financial statements.

“In order to fund the deficit this year and get our reserves down below the maximum, which we successfully did, it does require a reserve transfer to move $1,003,458 from restricted operating reserves to unrestricted operating reserves. Essentially what that means is we are moving just over $1 million from our restricted reserves into operations to fund that deficit, and that was part of our plan all along.”

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