The Strathcona Regional District is undergoing an audit of its financial statements.
MNP (Meyers Norris Penny) is performing the annual audit – a process expected to last through the next couple of months.
Brad Piercy, an accountant with MNP, made a presentation to the board at its Jan. 7 meeting to introduce the audit service plan.
“This is basically an outline of the audit responsibilities, your roles as directors and staff,” Piercy said. “We haven’t done the year-end audit yet.”
The audit, which is costing the regional district $29,000 plus administrative fees, disbursements and taxes, covers the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2014.
Piercy told the regional district board that in the past there haven’t been any issues with the regional district’s audits, but he did say that changes are coming.
The biggest change is in reporting future accounting.
Piercy said for 2015, the audit will have to take into account any contaminated sites that may be within the regional district’s borders.
“It is identifying any public lands that the regional district has that might have contamination and whether you will actually be fiscally responsible for cleaning up that contamination,” Piercy said.
“Any (contaminated) property that the Strathcona Regional District has, there’s going to be some financial payout in the future that is going to be your responsibility – not the province’s, not the federal government’s, not the city’s.”
Piercy added that other than dealing with liability for contaminated sites, there have been no other changes affecting the consolidated financial statements for 2014.
MNP is scheduled to present its audit findings to the board of directors in late April or early May to meet the regional district’s May deadline for final consolidated financial statements.