A Saskatchewan Rivers School Division financial audit shows a budget that went according to plan with some factors creating positive changes.
Chief Financial Officer Jerrold Pidborochynski updated the division’s financial standing at the Nov. 29 regular board meeting with a presentation on the audited financial statement for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31.
Pidborochynski said that the finances are in good order.
“The board does our budget that we approve by the end of June of the previous year and then, obviously, we see how our actual results are,” he explained. “This is really a comparison of how things went according to our budget or our plan and pretty much the majority overall went according to plan.
“I just go through with the board year our end operations and pretty much everything’s going according to plan and that we’re in good shape.”
Pidborochynski said the new teacher’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) changed some numbers in the actual budget compared to the budget in June, 2024.
“There was some more additional funding for that, and that’s mainly teacher salary. There’s also an increase in enrollments. We had an increase and an adjustment of funding of just $1.1 million for enrollments that went back into staffing as well. Other than that, pretty much everything was par for the course.”
The variances were all over in a good way not under in a bad way, Pidborochynski said.
Staffing costs account for the majority of the division’s expenditures. Out of $126 million in expenses, roughly $98 million goes towards salaries and benefits.
“(That’s) about 77.4 per cent of expenses are salaries and benefits, which makes sense.” Pidborochynski said.
“I just go through with the board year end operations and pretty much everything’s going according to plan. We’re in good shape.”
He added that a percentage of the CBA was to be paid retroactively. He said there was some additional funding, but that went to covering back-pay, not hiring additional teachers.
“Everything else is pretty much according to our budget,” he said.
“The increase was due to just the outside factors like the provincial CBA and also the pleasant surprise of the increase in enrollment and the increased funding there,” he said.
“I guess a couple other things that came up too is just the Teacher Innovation Fund, a little bit of funding for some of those teacher-led projects that were approved by the ministry as well, so that was what stood out for me,” he said.
The auditor for the division is MNP. The audit is sent to the Ministry of Education for final approval. Numbers are included as part of the division’s Annual Report.
Each year the Board contracts an external auditor to review the financial management and records of the division.
The board received the information and confirms it before it is made part of the Annual Report which is submitted to the Ministry. The Ministry then reviews the audited report before it is released to the public in the Annual Report in December.
In his report Pidborochynski said that when the audit is reviewed by the Ministry of Education he expects some minor adjustments but nothing major.
During the closed session of the meeting, representatives from the auditing firm of MNP reported on the annual audit.
Because of the CBA, the actual budget was $6.1 million and budget was $3 million, there was also an increase in Preventative Maintenance and Renewal (PMR) from a budget of $2.6 million to an actual of $3.4 million. The increase in enrollment funding was $1.1 million.
The audited statements saw an actual operating deficit of $784,482 compared to a budget deficit of $4,214,732.
Piborochynski explained during his presentation that there were more variations up in numbers throughout the report than would normally be seen because of these factors.
The local auditor and the provincial auditor indicated that the Saskatchewan Rivers financial house is in good order. There was strong evidence of effective and appropriate financial management and accounting and MNP issued a “clean audit” for the division.
Auditors commended Pidborochynski, and the financial team for their careful work over the year and supportive work with the auditors during the audit process.
Total revenues increased from $116,586,356 in budget to $125,218,501 in actual Total expenses increased from $120,801,088 in actual to $126,002,83 in actual.
One aspect that did decrease because of the pandemic was school generated funds, which comes from things like school fundraisers. That money has begun to rebound according to the report.
“They’ve been steadily increasing since COVID so that’s why those were up but, again, that’s sometimes due to a school need and based on increasing price as well. But, the schools have been doing a really job raising funds first for their operations as well,” Pidborochynski said.
According to the Aug. 31, 2024 numbers school generated funds were $1,455,747 and on Aug. 31, 2025 school generated funds had increased to $1,607,503.
The accumulated surplus at the end of the fiscal year is approximately $72 million which is a slight decrease from just over $72 million in 2024. The accumulated surplus has developed over the life of the school division.
The board is kept abreast of the situation with reports throughout the fiscal year.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
