The NLSD has 22 schools located in 17 communities with more than 3,900 students, and a staff of about 697 full-time equivalent positions. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

fiscal responsibility

Auditors report finds NLSD needs to work on goods and services purchasing processes

Dec 16, 2024 | 4:11 PM

The Provincial Auditor of Saskatchewan has determined the Northern Lights School Division (NLSD) needs to continue working to have effective processes to purchase goods and services.

That’s according to a report released this month, which flagged a number of concerns at the La Ronge-based school division which serves nearly the entirety of Northern Saskatchewan. The findings in the report were based on a follow-up of an audit completed in 2019.

At that time, the provincial auditor made 14 recommendations and by 2022, Northern Lights had partially implemented eight and had not made progress toward implementing six others.

“We appreciate the auditor’s report,” said NLSD director of education Jason Young.

“We want to ensure that we continue being a good steward of the resources that we have and so we want to demonstrate we are following those recommendations and so that’s what we are working on and continue to work on. I think the progress has been slow, but it has been happening.”

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As of 2024, the report found the school division needs to continue working to update its purchasing requirements, update credit card guidelines, monitor staff compliance with procedures, better management of fleet card purchases, consistently completed supplier evaluations, have a more robust purchase order template, and document its due diligence procedures used to validate suppliers.

Young explained the board discussed the findings of the report on Dec. 13 and he expects most of the recommendations will be completed by June 2025.

“That’s our target for this to address the rest of the items in the auditor’s report and there’s just some reminders with some of our staff that when there’s these purchase cards, there’s an expectation we have the receipts and they are accounted for, and they are provided to the division office as part of that purchase process,” he said.

“If not, we are just going to have to take some measures internally to ensure that is taken care of.”

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com