Riverview receives clean audit but auditors flag missing investment reports and $64.3 million landfill closure liability

Riverview City Council received an unmodified audit opinion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, but auditors told the council Tuesday that the city failed to provide quarterly investment disclosures required by state law and that the city’s land preserve carries a long-term landfill post‑closure liability estimated at $64,300,000.

The city’s auditors said the unmodified opinion means the financial statements were prepared in accordance with applicable rules but does not itself indicate the city’s fiscal health. “The city did receive an unmodified audit opinion,” an auditor identified as Bill said. “Our opinion does not reflect financial condition, but rather attest that the numbers included in that report are indeed accurate.”

The audit letter to the mayor and council disclosed one instance of noncompliance with a Michigan Public Act requiring quarterly investment reports to be provided to council; auditors said those reports were not provided during the audit period but have since been produced. Auditors also noted accounting adjustments they helped record for retiree health care and unfunded pension liabilities.

Why it matters: the audit shows Riverview’s general fund reported higher revenues than expenditures on a budgetary basis for 2024, in part because the land preserve transferred $1,500,000 to the general fund in 2024. That transfer and other operating transfers — $1,200,000 reported on a…