By Sheldon Spackman

Chinook’s Edge surplus to give reserves much-needed boost

Dec 4, 2018 | 10:02 AM

Strong financial controls and expertise are being credited for a $2 million surplus for the Chinook’s Edge School Division last year.

Superintendent Kurt Sacher says the best news from their 2017-2018 audited financial statements – which were approved by the board last week – is that they consistently receive positive feedback from their external audit committee each year.

“We have a tremendous treasurer in Susan Roy and her team,” states Sacher. “When you’re managing a budget in excess of $130 million, there’s so many complexities, so we’re so pleased that once again our auditors are happy with what they’re seeing. The other good news statement is that our revenue came in a little bit higher than our expenses, which we haven’t seen for a while.”

Sacher points out the board would like them to have reserves in the range of three to five per cent, relative to a surplus.

“This surplus allows us to bump them up slightly and just put ourselves in a little bit stronger position heading into what we think will be some tough budgets,” states Sacher. “We continue to be quite concerned about the lack of support for rural transportation. We continue to subsidize our transportation department in the neighbourhood of $800,000 – $900,000 a year and that’s money that could go straight to the classroom if we didn’t have to subsidize an under-funded rural transportation system.”

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Sacher reiterates the importance of keeping their reserves in good standing.

“It’s so important that we keep a three to five per cent range, relative to a surplus so that we have cash flow because a board can run into difficulties where you actually have to borrow money to pay your ongoing bills throughout the year,” exclaims Sacher. “It’s critically important that you have a little bit of money in reserve. We are still really lean as a school division in difficult times, given the nature and scope of our budget, so three to five per cent is not an overwhelming amount in comparison to some of the others out there.”

Audited financial statements approved by the Board of Trustees for Chinook’s Edge School Division on November 28 say revenue of $131 million and expenses of $129 million.

District officials say the Audited Financial Statements will now be filed with Alberta Education and posted to the district website, www.cesd73.ca.

by Sheldon Spackman

Chinook’s Edge surplus to give reserves much-needed boost

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