Chronology of Events

Chronology Detail:

(i) January – April 2005

The Ministry of Education developed a capital asset valuation proposal. Please see methodology on the introduction page.

(1)May 2005

The Ministry of Education’s starting point was obtaining a listing of capital assets. This was obtained through the School Facilities Inventory System (SFIS) Database. This database includes school board owned, leased, rented and shared school facilities. This database is kept up to date by the school boards. We then took the summarized data and transferred it onto an excel spreadsheet where the boards were asked to indicate which assets were owned and which were not per 2005:SB07. This information was due back to the Ministry of Education by July 31, 2005.

For complete instructions on the requirements please follow this link: Scroll down to 2005:SB07 and select, ‘detailed instructions’. A copy of the form is also available for viewing under ‘form’.

(2)August 2005

The Ministry of Education verified the data submitted by the boards under step 1 between June and the beginning of August. This data was then input into a web-based application developed the Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) called Capital Asset Project for EDU (CAPEdu). The data was divided between land and buildings records and had 3 valuation methodologies as follows:

- Historical (H): to be used when historical cost was available

- Benchmark/Model 98 (M): to be used for school-type buildings or land acquired pre-

1965.

- Estimate (E): to be used when the valuation will require an appraiser’s estimate

The boards were asked to input historical cost where available and other data where the historical cost was not available. They then locked the records when they were satisfied that the data was accurate and complete. Once the records were locked the appraisers proceeded to value those assets where historical cost was not available and where the other valuation methodology could not be used. This process was estimated to take 3 months with a deadline of October 31st, 2005. The process took closer to 5 months. Please see Capital Asset Project User Guide – For land and building assets for a complete guide on how to use the website application.

The CAPEdu website has been reactivated and can be accessed by the following link:

If you previously had access and have forgotten your password, hit ‘forgot password’ and a password will be e-mailed to you within minutes. If you have never had access to website, please send an e-mail to Sangita Barman at for access.

(3) December 2005

The ORC created another module to the CAPEdu website for boards to report information on their non-permanent structures. Once again the initial information came from the SFIS database. We cleansed the data and input it into CAPEdu. Boards had to confirm the number of non-permanent structures, the year of manufacture as well as their gross floor area. For details on the CAPEdu module on non-permanent structures, please refer to Capital Asset Project User Guide – For non-permanent structures on the intro page under instructions and guides. The corresponding memo that went out outlining the requirements can be found in 2005:SB34 at the following link:

and scroll down to SB34.

(4)December 2005

The Office of the Auditor General of Ontario performed an interim audit on the data input into the CAPEdu website. They asked boards for supporting documentation on the historical cost entered into the system and did other reasonableness tests where historical costs was not the valuation methodology used. Ministry of Education and the ORC also started their data cleansing process on the land assets, building assets and non-permanent structures.

(5) December 2005 – March 2006

The appraisers began their property and building appraisal process. The appraisers used floor plans of facilities, photographs, descriptions from ReCapp, geographical location of assets, conversations with school board staff and a multitude of other information in order to evaluate the assets.

(6) March – May 2006

The data was input into the BVC tool application after the data cleansing process had been completed. The BVC application, determined an opening gross book value, accumulated amortization and remaining service life for each land building asset. This value was determined using an assumed betterment rate, the condition of the asset and the year of acquisition / construction. These values were issued for purposes of the province’s public accounts for the 2005/06 fiscal year.

For more details on the BVC tool, please refer to BVC tool guide on the intro page under instructions and guides.

(7)October 2005

While the Ministry and boards were concentrating a lot of their efforts on getting the March 31, 2005 opening land and building asset values, the Ministry was equally interested in collecting information past this March 31, 2005 starting date. Therefore, the Ministry decided to collect ongoing capital asset activity twice per year:

-5 month period (April – August)

-7 month period (September – March)

The two distinct reporting periods allowed the Ministry of Education to report capital asset activity to the Province of Ontario for purposes of public accounts on a timely basis.

The Ministry chose an Excel file as a means to collect the activity. The Excel files were loaded with the boards’ data (that was available at this point). Boards then entered investments in, new assets, disposals of assets for land, building, land improvement and construction in progress assets. Boards were also asked to report on their capital and operating leases on land and building assets. The requirements for this data collection exercise are further explained in 2005:SB26. This memo is available at the following link: and scroll down until you reach SB 26. The boards were also given instructions on what should be capitalized through a draft tangible capital asset implementation guide. The final version of this document is ‘School Board and School Authority Tangible Capital Assets – Provincial Accounting Policies and Implementation Guide’ which is located on the intro page under instructions and guides. The guide went through three different versions but the only change to the guide that impacted land and buildings was a decision to not capitalize portable moving costs in February 2006. Therefore boards had the choice of correcting their inclusion in a subsequent excel file.

(8) April 2006

Pursuant to 2006:SB06, the Ministry issued its first 7-month capital activities file to collect activity on school board land, building and land improvement assets for the period of September 2005 to March 2006. The memo can be found at the following link and scrolling down until you reach 2006:SB06.

(9) November 2006

Pursuant to 2006:SB26, the Ministry issued its second 5-month capital activities file to collect activity on school board land, building and land improvement assets for the period of April 2006 to August 2006. The memo can be found at the following link and scrolling down until youreach 2006:SB26.

(10) March 2007

Pursuant to 2007:SB07, the Ministry issued its second 7-month capital activities file to collect activity on school board land, building and land improvement assets for the period of September 2006 to March 2007. The memo can be found at the following link and scrolling down until you reach SB 07.

From all of these data collecting exercises, the Ministry has created excel continuity spreadsheets starting with the data output by the BVC in March 2005 to March 2007. They have been posted on the EFIS website under Static Reports. We expect that board staff and board auditors will be using this document in order to start validating the opening land and building asset values that will make up the board’s opening balances in 2008/09.