Summary
We issued unqualified independent auditor’s reports on the 2017–2018 financial statements for the Ministry of Education, the Department of Education, the Alberta School Foundation Fund and the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund Board.
The Ministry of Education’s consolidated financial statements include the Department of Education, the Alberta School Foundation Fund, and the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund and 74 Alberta school jurisdictions.
We made one new recommendation to the department to improve the processes to monitor, assess and report on school jurisdictions’ accumulated operating reserves—see below.
The department implemented effective processes over tracking and reporting cost obligations for school construction projects—see page 53.
The department has 11 outstanding recommendations, one of which has been outstanding for more than three years.
In May 2017, the Northland School Division Act was changed resulting in the Auditor General no longer being the legislated auditor for the division. The board of trustees of the division chooses its external auditor, a process consistent with all other school jurisdictions in the province. The division has two outstanding recommendations on systems to improve student attendance in the division that we will follow up on once implemented.