The Sea to Sky School District’s books appear to be in order, according to provincial government auditors.
“The statement of financial position is showing the school district in the surplus, which is healthy,” said Molly Pearce, director from the office of the auditor general of B.C. “From that aspect, we see no indicators of things going off the rail.”
The accumulated surplus adds up to $13 million.
That’s the overall number when debt, financial assets and capital assets are added up.
Assuming the accumulated surplus is positive, the bigger the number, the better.
And while $13 million seems to be a healthy number, it appears as if the school district is doing better than that.
Because the province’s treasury board requires schools to keep their books using a method that’s different from Canadian public sector accounting standards, there appears to be an overestimation of the school district’s debt.
The amount of net debt is posted at $38 million, but using a different calculation method, that amount actually flips into $1.9 million in assets, Pearce said.
The reason why the debt flips is in part because public sector accounting standards take into account that the district will never have to pay back funds for the purchase of capital assets, she said.
Furthermore, when applying the Canadian public sector calculation methods, the accumulated surplus balloons to $53.8 million, up from $13 million.
While the statements appear to be misleading in those respects, there is no way to avoid these discrepancies because of treasury board regulations, Pearce said.
