While city council has an idea of how the municipality’s fourth-quarter financial picture looks, it won’t know how Moose Jaw finished 2019 financially until at least March.
City administration provided a report about how the final three months of 2019 looked economically for the municipality during the recent city council meeting. The report provided information on financial condition indicators, a summary of capital expenditures and statistical information for the entire year.
However, revenue and expenses for the fourth quarter were not provided since year-end work is underway on that data, explained finance director Brian Acker. If council wanted that information right now, it would not receive a clear picture of the final results.
City administration expects to have preliminary year-end information by Feb. 28 and complete year-end information by April 3. However, if council wanted the preliminary year-end information, the results could be shared during a March meeting, or in April if more accurate results are requested, he added.
The final audited statements are expected to be presented to council by May 25.
Also provided with the fourth-quarter statement was a summary of Mosaic Place’s financial statement, which included a balance sheet and income statement that Spectra Venue Management Services — which now manages the building — produced. That report was from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, 2019.
The former Downtown Facility and Field House (DFFH) organization will produce a financial report from January to September since it looked after the building during that time.
“I’m still absolutely amazed it takes until the end of February to get year-end done … why do we need two months to finalize year-end? Is that consistent with municipalities? I used to work in an organization that two weeks after year-end, you get it done,” said Coun. Scott McMann.
Other Saskatchewan municipalities have similar deadlines of when they complete year-end reports, said Acker. One issue city administration discovered is it’s difficult to have suppliers submit their costs in a timely fashion. City hall is unable to complete year-end work until payables are completed.
Major work is required to make adjustments for up to 250 entries for year-end, he continued. That involves four to six weeks of work, followed by the preparation of the financial statement. City administration is now working with the auditors on this.
Even though city hall is working on year-end financials, that doesn’t mean it has quit collecting payables for this new year, Acker remarked. All entries are still coming in and being counted, while a first-quarter report will be produced.
“One advantage this year is we are not doing budget as well. That’s a huge (amount of time and effort) for the finance department in terms of bringing it forward,” he added.
A section in the fourth-quarter update indicates 70 per cent of the money budgeted for paving roads was used, while the rest was unspent due to the weather, said McMann. He wondered if the municipality would pursue that work sooner this year so it wouldn’t be affected by poor fall weather.
The engineering department lined up many projects in a timely manner last year, and after it received favourable tender prices, it put out a second group of tenders later in the season, explained engineering director Josh Mickleborough. That was good since the budget was completely expended. Similar expectations are anticipated for this year.
“Our locations are being planned as we speak and the tenders will be to market in decent time, allowing contractors to bid,” he added. “We’ll get those bids in again and hopefully we’ll get favourable pricing again and we have the same problem where we have to release a second tender package later in the season.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Feb. 24.
