| 1. | 1/8/2008 2:37:00 PM | AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! |
| 2. | 1/8/2008 3:02:00 PM | Please contact me if you are considering arranging and rountable discussions.
Mike Mayes CGA
Assistant Director of Finance
The Town of Newmarket
905-895-5193 ext 2102
mmayes@newmarket.ca |
| 3. | 1/8/2008 5:27:00 PM | WE will likely need to hire a consultant(s) to carryout a lot of this work but Council has not yet allocated any financial resources |
| 4. | 1/8/2008 7:58:00 PM | we were advised that MFOA would be coming forward with some guidance on Cost indexes and we hope to see that soon
as for case study, we hope that a municipality gets its project finished by mid-year 2008 and volunteers to let its data be used for instructional purposes |
| 5. | 1/9/2008 2:03:00 PM | Having been able to follow the GASBE issues in the states and all the problems they have been facing, and to allow enough time to come up with a consistent accounting and capital asset policy among all municipalities, a major delay in implementation is highly recommended. |
| 6. | 1/9/2008 3:17:00 PM | Thanks for the continued support, keep up the good work. |
| 7. | 1/9/2008 5:44:00 PM | The combined efforts of MFOA, AMCTO & OGRA are very worthwhile, but as mentioned in #17 - you can only develop the training material so fast. I would also welcome more standard policies - i.e. amortization rates, method of amortizing, capital thresholds - even if they were established based on size of municipality - since materiality will be different depending on the size of the municpality. |
| 8. | 1/9/2008 8:39:00 PM | None at the moment |
| 9. | 1/9/2008 9:51:00 PM | Ask the Province to relax the auditor's role stating a "qualified" report on the Financial Statement if the municipality is not compliant. A qualified report may reflect poorly on political incumbents for the next municipal election which may put unnecessary pressure on staff, who are trying to become PSAB compliant.
Ask the Province to provide more time to be compliant.
Most electors are not concerned about taxpayers money that was spent 40 years ago, but are concerned about the immediate services provided to them and the cost of services going forward. (Voter turn out stats are low) Ask the Province to allow municipalities to create an inventory of Tangible Capital Assets that are under 7 years old. (common retention of records) Any major assets beyond that age could be recorded as a note to the financial statement and a constant amortization value assigned annually to eventually create a replacement value. (constant amoung certain sizes of municipalities and type of asset)
There are a lot of resources going into this bookkeeping project and it would be interesting to know the cost/benefit of PSAB 3150 for municipalities. I understand that PSAB 3150 should provide the tools to eventually achieve sound management and business planning for replacement of assets; however there should have been some flexibility within this public sector accounting principle in order to be practical to ratepayers (who pay the bills)staff and elected officials.
The above won't be helpful, but if you finished reading these comments, I appreciated venting. Have a great day! |
| 10. | 1/11/2008 3:50:00 PM | With the lack of actual guidelines (ie materiality, depreciation methods, useful life, asset groupings), its hard to imagine comparing financial statements from one municipality to another when policies could vary significantly). Rumour has it that the information will be used in the future to help lobby for grants, if that is the case, unfair comparisons could be made between competing Municiaplities because of different policies used for calculating asset values. The governement will have to look at the policies used as well as the capital assets reports. I just thought that guidelines could have been given to Municipalities and categorized them depending on size. |
| 11. | 1/14/2008 6:11:00 PM | Is there any chance that PSAB will extend the implementation date? |
| 12. | 1/14/2008 6:11:00 PM | I am actuallu responding on behalf of the City of Mount Pearl in NF. We joined the MFOA of Onatrio to take advantage of training and educational opportunities available to members.
Regards,
Norm Snelgrove
Assistant City Treasurer
Mount Pearl, NL |
| 13. | 1/14/2008 6:16:00 PM | I would like MFOA/AMCTO and the Ministry to attempt to promote meetings as often as bimonthly in the various Counties or Regions of the Province in order that those that have progressed very well in this project can assist others that may not have the human or financial resources to carry out the requirements. I would also suggest that everybody keep your Council involved as the resources will only come with interaction between the staff and council. Councils must be kept aware of the need and the deadlines that we all face. |
| 14. | 1/14/2008 6:17:00 PM | Emphasis on DOCUMENT,DOCUMENT,DOCUMENT so auditors can see rational.
Early communication with auditors.
Remember that the financial statements are the municipality's statements not the auditors. |
| 15. | 1/14/2008 7:41:00 PM | I didn't realize this hotline was set up and didn't realize there was a financial advisor for our area. I think what is happening is too much information so it doesn't all make it to the memory bank. |
| 16. | 1/14/2008 8:12:00 PM | I understand the American model does not require the amortization of infrastructure assets as long as the condition rating of these assets remains satisfactory. This would imply that a condition rating system is mandatory and worthwhile. I would like to know why the CICA chose to deviate from this model and require amortization of infrastructure assets when this asset category will always have to be maintained, in place. The American model just seems to be a simpler and more relevant method to maintain.
Thank you. |
| 17. | 1/14/2008 8:37:00 PM | if MMAH could come up with a "recommendation" as to what software we should be using to capture and evaluate the capital assets, I think that would be very helpful. I don't mean to sound "glib" but we are just not equipped to evaluate all the various software vendors out there and make a decision as to who is the best. I don't know enough about any of them to pick one over the other and in addition, there has been no moratorium on the rest of our more boring, mundane but nevertheless, essential daily tasks, to free up enough time to work on PSAB. This is a huge undertaking, it requires a huge investment of time and capital - small municipalities such as ours are sadly lacking in both. |
| 18. | 1/15/2008 1:58:00 AM | While we fully recognize the benefits of accounting for fixed assets, this is a project that most smaller municipalities have limited resources to dedicate to; therefore, I would have recommended compliance by larger, more resource-rich municipalities first, followed a year later by smaller, less resource-rich municipalities. Populations of >100,000 are ill-equipped to handle this information gathering process with current staffing levels and are not in a position financially to hire for this project to meet the deadlines imposed. |
| 19. | 1/17/2008 8:08:00 PM | --The workshops have been extremely helpful -- particularly the one in Fall 2007.
--At some point, a day or half day completely devoted to the accounting aspects with hands-on exercises, for all sizes of municipalities please.
--This challenge is huge because it is so difficult to go back and change information or valuations if they were done inaccurately, etc. There is a lot of fear of messing up. It is not helpful when auditors make negative threats about "qualified" statements. |
| 20. | 1/18/2008 1:44:00 PM | I feel the Province, AMo & other "high level" bodies could have been visible, with politicians, in showing support for this undertaking. |
| 21. | 1/31/2008 5:23:00 PM | We've greatly appreciated your efforts so far. Keep up the good work. |