Apt Foundation

“The information contained in The APTF's Form 990 is prepared jointly by APT's Accounting staff and the CFO and provided to an independent tax preparer. Upon receipt of the completed Form 990 from the preparer, it is reviewed by the Accounting staff and the CFO for completeness, accuracy and continuity. It is then forwarded to APT's Executive Director for final review and approval. Once it is approved by the Executive Director, the CFO signs the Form 990. The return is then provided to the APTF's Board of Directors and filed with the IRS. APT's Executive Director and CFO are members of the APTF's board.”

“The APTF contracts with the AETFA for employment services for fundraising staff. The employees of the AETFA have password access to an employee intranet site that has an on-line employee guide that contains the conflict of interest policy. New employees are required to review all organizational policies in the employee guide within two weeks of employment and sign a statement that they have reviewed and understand these policies. The Board of Directors abides by a conflict of interest policy and is periodically provided a hard copy of the policy in their board materials. New board members receive a hard copy of the policy in their board books provided immediately upon their appointments. There is a confidential reporting system (more popularly known as a whistle-blower policy) available to all employees which is described in detail in the employee guide. This system provides a toll-free number for employees to call if they suspect any impropriety by managers and executives of the company in the form of misuse of company assets or that of other employees that they may feel have not been addressed appropriately. The phone call can be anonymous and goes to a third party provider that takes the information and then relays it directly to a Board member who has accepted responsibility for handling such employee concerns. It is then the responsibility of that Board member to take appropriate action depending on the nature of the concern. Since the implementation of the confidential reporting system in 2007, no complaints or concerns have been received.”

“The financial statements and records of the Foundation are subject to an independent audit and combined with the financial statements for the AETC and the AETFA. Statements for each of the three entities are broken out separately as supplemental information in the audit report. The Foundation Board adopted the same conflict of interest policy as the AETC and the AETFA. The AETC is a state agency and the AETFA is a public corporation and both organizations are therefore subject to the Alabama Open Records Act of 1915. All documents of these organizations must be made available to any member of the public requesting to see them. Therefore any member of the public would also have access to the financial records, statements and policies adopted by the Foundation because they are combined with the AETC and the AETFA. The requestor may physically examine these documents between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on standard business days at the corporate headquarters located in Birmingham, Alabama. Reasonable advance notice is requested in order for staff to have sufficient time to pull the requested documents from the public file maintained by APT and to reserve space for the requestor to conduct their examination.”

“No changes from prior year.”