A decision on whether to put the Lighthouse Supported Living into receivership has been pushed back until early next week.
Over the past two years, the Saskatoon shelter has been mired in conflict over finances, firings and fire and building code violations.
During a Court of King’s Bench Hearing Thursday afternoon, Justice Alision Rothery heard that lawyer Paul Fedoroff had just been retained as counsel for the Lighthouse and three of its board members, Adeel Salman, Lisa McCallum and Don Windels.
Fedoroff asked for the brief adjournment to go over the case, and as a result the hearing was pushed back until Tuesday.
Lawyer Candace Grant represented remaining board members, Twila Reddekopp and Jerome Hepfner, who were ousted as co-managers of the Lighthouse at the end of January.
On Feb. 8, the pair filed affidavits and an application calling for the Lighthouse Supported Living to be put into temporary receivership, while an accounting and tax firm examined the charity’s finances in detail.
The court also heard from Affinity Credit Union’s Wayne Pederson, who told the judge the Lighthouse only had a $43,000 line of credit remaining after its most recent staff pay period.
Over the long term, Pederson told the court Lighthouse assets would likely need to be sold to resolve ongoing financial debts.
Rothery asked Grant what would happen after 30 days if a receivership were granted. Grant said that would depend on what happened during the first 30 days, as there was the potential for the accounting firm to uncover additional financial issues that would prompt some form of receivership to continue.
All parties involved agreed to a temporary preservation order.
The order stated that there would be no disposition of assets of either the Lighthouse or the Lighthouse-owned Blue Mountain Adventure Park, no operational changes or layoffs of any kind, and no destruction of any records by any party unless four out of five Lighthouse board members agreed, or three of four Blue Mountain board members agreed.