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M.D. undergoes audit for 2018
Posted on May 15, 2019 by Taber TimesPoll
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By Cole Parkinson
Taber Times
cparkinson@tabertimes.com
With another year brings a new audit looking back at the previous year for the Municipal District of Taber.
During council’s regular meeting on April 9, KPMG was in council chambers to provide a quick update on the financial statements for the year ending on Dec. 31, 2018.
“We have completed our field work and are prepared to issue an unmodified or clean audit opinion,” said Derek Taylor, KPMG auditor.
Starting with the consolidated statement of financial position, Taylor highlighted some of the bigger changes from 2017.
“You will see our receivables are up quite a bit. That receivable increase largely has to do with the fact that if we look back at last spring, obviously flooding and amounts have been applied for. Your team has been applying for that funding and that is why you are seeing that increase in receivables.”
Receivables in 2018 from taxes and grants in lieu of receivables and trade and other receivables were at $419,144 ($440,355 in 2017) and $2,271,374 ($909,967 in 2017), respectively.
“You do see a decrease in cash because a lot of that money is tied up in the fact you haven’t received it yet,” continued Taylor.
Cash and temporary investments were down in 2018 to $20,287,660 compared to the prior year at $20,947,069.
Meanwhile, financial assets were up from $23,680,565 in 2017 to $24,535,878 in 2018.
Liabilities were totalled at $8,687,439 in 2018 which was up from $6,985,232 in 2017.
“We see an increase in our accounts payable. Just a modest increase of about $400,000 and that is just largely timing. Our deferred revenue saw an increase, and that again is largely due to the fact that we received some MSI funding that hasn’t been spent yet,” added Taylor.
Taylor also touched on the net financial assets which has seen a bump downwards to $15,848,439 from $16,695,333.
“We see a slight decrease this year and that is due to the fact we have spent some of our financial assets on non-financial assets. You see an increase in tangible capital assets, what that represents is some investment into our infrastructure,” he explained. “What this line item means is that we have sufficient financial assets and we have all of our liabilities too. Even though you see a slight decrease from the prior year, it still leaves the M.D. in a very strong position to continue to invest in itself moving forward.”
Revenues are also up for 2018 from both prior year and from the budget as it totalled $22,257,224.
Taylor touched on both property taxes and government transfers as two of the larger moving portions of revenues.
“There is a slight increase from prior year but it is less than what was budgeted for,” he said about the property taxes while also highlighting why government transfers came in. “A lot of that has to do with flood recovery money which has been applied for.”
Expenses are also up a shade of $2.4 million from what was budget, which again stems from the extensive flooding that hit southern Alberta last spring.
“Looking at it in general, we do see an increase over the prior year. A lot of that comes from the flood,” added Taylor. “We had budgeted for a deficiency but it is a bit larger due to additional expenditures from the flooding.”
Accumulated surplus at the beginning of the year was $150,163,014 while the end of the year was at $151,222,271.
Operating excess of revenues over expenses for 2018 was $1,059,257, down from $12,008,908 in 2017.
Taylor touched on cash provided by operating transactions which saw a drop of nearly $4 million.
“It is $5.6 million this year compared to $9.4 million. What this line represents is cash flow from day-to-day operations. For any organization, you like to see this number be positive so what it means is the day-to-day operations are generating positive cash flow. While we do see a slight decrease, when we look up we see it is because we had non-cash transactions related to contribution of land and things like gains on disposal of land.”
On the capital side, $6,070,320 was cash applied to capital transaction which was down from $9,467,862 in 2017.
“This is the M.D.’s investment into their infrastructure,” explained Taylor.
A motion was passed to accept the 2018 financial statements.
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