Union Township remains financially sound

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Union Township?s auditor says the central Michigan?s second-largest municipality finished the last fiscal year in an extremely healthy financial position.

?Consistently, your revenues have exceeded your expenditures,? said auditor Ali Goodhall of the Yeo & Yeo accounting firm. ?You have a very healthy fund balance.?

Union Township?s fund balance is so healthy, in fact, that the township would be able to operate for about 700 days just on what it has in its bank accounts, the auditor told the township board.

The township?s general fund, its primary operating fund, showed total revenues of $1.49 million, but expenditures of $1.02 million. It grew by more than $466,000 during 2012.

Revenues ended up being about $51,000 higher than budgeted, according to the audit. That was mainly as a result of state revenue sharing payments that were higher than originally estimated.

The Michigan Constitution gives cities, villages and townships a share of state sales tax collections, and those were higher than anticipated in 2012.

On the expenditure side, every single section of the general fund budget came in under budget. General government was $120,090 under budget, public works was $112,736 under budget, and parks and recreation was $14,296 below plan. All told, expenditures were more than $366,000 below the original plan.

The biggest single area where money budgeted wasn?t spent was in roads, streets and bridges. Several projects the township budgeted for in 2012 were put off until the current fiscal year.

Goodhall said the township gets just under two-thirds of its revenue from state revenue sharing. Even with the unexpected increase, the amount was down about $148,000 from the prior year, she said.

About one-quarter of the township?s general fund money comes from the township?s 1-mill property tax for operations. That raised more than $271,000 in 2012.

The rest of the township?s revenue comes from interest, rent, fees and other small sources of revenue.

Union Township spent $1.02 million from its general fund in 2012; the fund balance at the end of the year was $1.96 million.

Union Township also collects 2.1 mills for fire protection, which goes into a separate fire fund. The township has a contract with the Mt. Pleasant Fire Department for the service, and the audit report said that tax raised $688,000, which is expected to cover the township?s cost.

The city of Mt. Pleasant and the township are expected to negotiate a new fire contract; the current one is expiring.

The township board has begun early work on its 2014 budget. A schedule adopted in late June puts the final budget adoption just before Christmas, with the fiscal year beginning Jan. 1.

Mark Ranzenberger is online editor of TheMorningSun.com. Follow him on Twitter @ranzenberger.

Source: http://www.themorningsun.com/article/20130708/NEWS01/130709627/union-township-remains-financially-sound

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