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Part of 2012

Question

>>> Jutta Mason <juttamason@gmail.com> 1/9/2013 3:46 pm >>>

Dear Stephen,

Now that the new year has begun, I'd like to follow up on our last e-mail exchange.

I've attached a request for the specific 2012 information that I have not yet been able to obtain from you. Please let me know whether you can answer my questions or whether it's better if I put them into an FOI request. The questions are attached.

Best regards,

Jutta

Reply

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 4:06 PM, Stephen Graham <sgraham@toronto.ca> wrote: Hi Jutta,

I have attached the listing of accounting period close dates.

Our fiscal year runs from January 1st to December 31st. Payroll charges are accrued to the appropriate year.

We will not be able to run 2012 year-end reports until the year officially closes in February so that we include all accruals.

I will send you the year-end figures for ward 18 at that time. If you would like PFR to run separate reports for all periods, then I would suggest that you request a separate FOI and there would be an additional fee for staff time to gather the information.

For your question #5 below, I do not understand your question and what you are looking to clarify. Can you restate your question?

5. In your e-mail dated Sept.26 2012, you wrote that some of the donations were recorded as “sundry or other recoveries,” but these seem to have been amounts under Tech Services and Parks. Can you clarify?

Regards,

Stephen Graham, B.Comm., CMA Senior Budget Analyst, Management Services Parks, Forestry & Recreation

Reply

Dear Stephen,

thank you for your very prompt reply. Here are my responses:

1. I will ask the Ward 18 recreation supervisor to clarify why the payroll entry period in other years has not matched the calendar fiscal year

2. I will wait until February to find out whether the SAP donation numbers for 2012 match our Quickbooks record

3. Thank you for sending the accounting period closing dates. That helps.

4. I will ask through FOI to get the year-to-date spreadsheets for periods 1,2,3,4,5,6,8, and 10. Hopefully this will not take a lot of extra staff time. That will allow us to get a better sense of monthly and seasonal totals -- an important number for our research, even if not for the city.

(Might I suggest that PFR's SAP spreadsheets by individual ward could be published on the OpenData section of the city's website at the end of every accounting period?

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/open_data/open_data_home?vgnextoid=b3886aa8cc819210VgnVCM10000067d60f89RCRD Your staff have to produce the reports anyway. It would be helpful for the councillors as well, if such detailed information were made easily available.)

5. In regard to your puzzlement about point #5, here are your emails about "sundry revenues" and "other recoveries."

Sept 26th 2012 e-mail: "However, there was additional revenue recorded as 'other recoveries' (campfire & misc) and 'sundry revenue' (campfire) in the amount of $9,987.03 for a total year-to-date amount of $29,520.16."

October 18 2012 e-mail: "To answer your other question on specific lines - please note that 9415 is "Other Recoveries" and 9450 is "Sundry Revenue"

Both line numbers seem to be unrelated to the donations we're looking at, i.e. they concern Tech Services and Parks. Why did you quote them to me, and why did you think they were connected to campfires?

Jutta

Reply

Jan 10 Hi Jutta,

Please note that the reports that I produce for you are not part of our regular reporting. We have customized them for yourself only.

As mentioned previously, we do not have the data to report on a ward by ward basis. A large portion of the financials that you see are for the entire south district.

In response to your question 5; please remember the reason for our correspondence was to identify where your donations were recorded. They were not all recorded into the 'Donations' GL.

Regards,

Stephen Graham, B.Comm., CMA
Senior Budget Analyst, Management Services
Parks, Forestry & Recreation

Reply

January 17

Hello Stephen,

Thanks for your response -- I overlooked it until today, hence the delay.

In the case of Recreation and Facilities, the data you sent do relate specifically to Ward 18. In the case of Parks and Tech services, I assume those sections will need to begin to use cost centres at some point, so that it will be easier to connect spending with ward location after that.

For now, if you can electronically send me the accounting periods 1,2,3,4,5,6,8, and 10 in SAP for all of South District PFR, we can look for the Ward 18 data ourselves -- no need to customize it for us. Would that remove the need for an FOI request?

Those data would be easy for Open Data to publish as well, am I right?

Re your point about the donations -- you say in your response that they were "NOT all recorded into the 'Donations' GL" -- so where specifically can we find the other records of CELOS donations, in amounts that match our receipts?

Jutta