By: K. Michelle Moran | Grosse Pointe Times | Published October 16, 2024
GROSSE POINTE WOODS — The Grosse Pointes-Clinton Refuse Disposal Authority has the distinction of being the last audit performed by Rochester Hills-based Ramie Phillips Jr., PC, CPA.
CPA Lynn Gromaski, who handles the finances for the GPCRDA, said Phillips’ audit of the GPCRDA’s finances for the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year — which ended June 30 — marked Phillips’ final audit before he retired.
The GPCRDA once again passed muster with flying colors.
“It’s a clean opinion — no management items,” Gromaski told the GPCRDA Board at a meeting Sept. 10 in Grosse Pointe Woods.
That’s an assertion confirmed in Phillips’ own words.
“In my opinion, the financial statements … present fairly, in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities, the business-type activities, and each major fund, of the Authority, as of June 30, 2024, and the respective changes in the financial position for the year then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America,” Phillips wrote in a letter to the board.
One of the main differences between the 2024 audit and the 2023 audit was the fact that the GPCRDA’s net position rose from $1.445 million last year to $1.724 million this year. Gromaski said that was due to an increase of nearly $280,000 in the net pension asset. By contrast, the net pension asset declined almost $300,000 in the prior fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2023.
“We were very similar to the prior year,” Gromaski said.
GPCRDA officials praised Gromaski for her maintenance of the financial records.
“This is really a job well done,” GPCRDA Attorney John Gillooly said. “It’s great for all of the Grosse Pointe communities to participate in this.”
The five Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods make up the member communities of the GPCRDA, which handle trash disposal for the six cities.
“I think the $3 administrative fee is (serving) us well,” Gromaski said. “It’s covering (our costs).”
On July 1, 2017, a higher administrative fee — which rose from $1 per ton of trash to $3 per ton, for a $2 per ton increase — went into effect for the member communities, because the old fee was no longer covering expenses such as insurance and contributions to the pension system. Member communities have been paying the $3 per ton fee ever since.
Phillips has been doing audits for the GPCRDA since 2014. Prior to that, Plante Moran audited the GPCRDA’s books for many years. The GPCRDA Board voted in 2014 to switch auditors because, while their finances had gotten simpler since shuttering their incinerator in 1999, auditing costs remained higher than they felt they should be, and Phillips’ bid was about 40% cheaper than what they had been paying Plante Moran. They said then the decision to change auditors was based on cost, noting that they had been happy with the work done by Plante Moran.
Phillips’ retirement means the GPCRDA will need to find a new auditor. It wasn’t known at press time when they might be seeking auditing bids.
At the September meeting, the GPCRDA Board also learned that they needed to make a small payment toward their pension, which covers employees who used to work at the incinerator. The board budgeted about $30,000 toward a possible pension payment in the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year, but Gromaski said they only had to make a payment of $7,704 to the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, or MERS, which manages the pension. The GPCRDA Board doesn’t find out whether a payment will be needed or not until around July each year — after they’ve already approved a budget for the new fiscal year, which starts July 1. Typically, if the GPCRDA budgets more than is necessary for a pension payment, the remaining money is set aside in the rainy day fund.
The GPCRDA Board voted unanimously in favor of the pension payment as part of bill approval Sept. 10.