In an effort to keep track of where ratepayers dollars are being spent, Lac La Biche County council is now receiving monthly financial reports from administration. But they still aren’t sure what to do with them.
The most recent monthly report was 84 pages, showing $60 million sitting in a Servus Credit Union account. A few pages later shows $2 in the staff social fund. The municipality has spent nearly $66,000 on computer software, and is at 83 per cent of what was budgeted for the year. Janitorial supplies have cost $30,000 so far. And contributions to the Greater North Foundation – the group that built the new Lacalta Lodge – cost $708,000, which was 275 per cent of what was budgeted.
But knowing that the human resources department has a postage budget of $201 for the year was a little more detail than councillors were looking for, and the line-by-line breakdown of expenditures, assets and liabilities proved to be information overload for the local politicians.
After asking if council would be receiving this financial information every month, Coun. Aurel Langevin said that while he wanted to see financial statements, he didn’t require this level of detail.
“I don’t need to know what our postage costs are, or what our freight costs are,” he said.
Part of the problem in providing a summary of financial information was that the county had outgrown their current accounting software, said director of corporate services Rodney Boyko. The system was great at holding information, but when it came to generating reports, the program wasn’t meeting the county’s needs.
“Information goes in but it’s really hard to get out,” said Boyko.
But providing the financials, even though it was highly detailed, was a step in providing the tools council needed to do their job.
“This information is for you guys to be able to make the decisions you need to,” Boyko told council.
And to do the job administration needs to, a search for a new accounting system is underway, a system that will better meet the needs of a growing county.
In the end, it was agreed that a more user-friendly version of the county’s financial position would be provided to council the next month, with administration agreeing to find a way to get their software to spit out the results council wanted.
“You don’t learn the system, you learn how to work around the system,” said Boyko.
