audited financials
Introduction
The Great Salt Lake Council in order to become more transparent to its volunteers, members and donors, has posted its Audited Consolidated Financial Statements and the current budgets here on its website. Along with those documents a short explanation is provided for certain significant transactions.
If there are further questions about these documents you are welcome to contact Brian P. Sheets, CPA (the Council’s Chief Financial Officer) at bsheets@bsamail.org.
Great Salt Lake Council Audited Consolidated Financial Statement Explanations
To assist you in better understanding the Audited Consolidated Financial Statements for the Great Salt Lake Council, BSA for the year ending December 31, 2007 the following major points of explanation are made below.
1. Boy Scout Financial Policy requires all Councils to report in a three fund format. The funds are:
a. General Operating Fund, which includes all normal day to day operations of the Council for the year.
b. Capital Fund, which includes all of the fixed assets for the Council based on their Capitalization Policy. It also includes the Capital Campaign income and expenses and any construction in progress for fixed assets the Council is going to keep.
c. Endowment Fund, which holds funds that are to be invested, made up of unrestricted, temporarily restricted and permanently restricted funds with the interest, dividends and realized gains or losses used to support the Boy Scout programs in the Operating Fund.
2. The Audited Consolidated Financial Statements are made up of 6 basic sections. Those sections are:
a. Independent Auditors Report page 3, which gives the Great Salt Lake Council, BSA an unqualified opinion, which means the Council Consolidated Financial Statements for the year ending December 31, 2007, presents fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Council.
b. Consolidated Statement of Financial Position, page 4, which reflects all of the Assets, Liabilities and Net Assets (i.e. equity or retained earnings) for all three funds for the year ending December 31, 2007.
c. Consolidated Statement of Changes in Net Assets, pages 5-7, which show the income and expenses for all three funds broken out by the type of restrictions placed on the revenue i.e. unrestricted, temporarily restricted and permanently restricted.
d. Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows, pages 8-9, shows the changes in cash for all three funds broken into three major sections of Cash Flows from Operations, Cash Flows from Investing Activities and Cash Flows from Financing Activities.
e. Consolidated Statement of Functional Expenses, page 10 reflects the functional expenses of Program Services, Management and General and Fund Raising broken down to their natural classifications.
f. Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, page 11-20, which represents 15 notes giving further details on various aspects of the Consolidated Audited Financial Statements.
3. Significant Transactions during the Year December 31, 2007
a. The Great Salt Lake Council owns Teton Whitewater LC a for-profit Wyoming rafting company. See Note 2 of the Footnotes to the Consolidated Audited Financial Statements for further details. For the year ending December 31, 2007 the profit to the Council was $14,400.
b. The Friends of Scouting Campaign for 2007 brought in on a gross basis $2,301,628 ($253,560+$2,048,068) in the Operating Fund and on a net basis after the Gold Club Discount it netted $2,129,521 ($2,301,628 - $172,107).
c. In the Capital Fund the Pine Canyon land was sold for a profit of $1,163,855, which is reflected in “Gain on sale of assets” in the Consolidated Statement of Changes in Net Assets.
d. Cash contributions to the Capital Campaign in the Capital Fund were $1,807,616 for the year 2007.
e. On the Consolidated Statement of Financial Position Net Assets grew from $8,577,612 to $11,539,641 with Unrestricted Net Assets now being positive in all three Funds.
Click here for the December 31, 2008 Budget - (pdf format)
Budgeting Process
The budgeting process for a year begins in the spring of the preceding year and concludes in November of that year when the Board of Directors approves the up coming year’s operating budget. Several steps are included into this process and are delineated below:
- Volunteers and Professional together prepare initial budgets in the Summer
- Those are review by their Supervisors and the Accounting Department and put into the accounting system.
- The Budget is then complied and reviewed by the Cabinet made up of the Scout Executive, Director of Support Services, Director of Field Services and the Chief Financial Officer.
- Changes recommended and approve by the Cabinet are implemented into the budget and the paperwork is prepared to present the budget to the Budget Committee.
- The Budget Committee meets and reviews the budget and further changes are usually recommend and once made the budget is approve by them.
- The Budget is presented to the Officer for approval and once they approve it usually during the first part of November the full Board approves it later that month.
- The Budget is monitored throughout the year by Staff, Officers and Board.