Independent auditors told the Princeton City Council on Oct. 20 that the city's financial statements received a clean, unmodified opinion and that the audit was issued in early October, meeting state comptroller reporting deadlines.

"We did issue a clean, unmodified opinion on the financial statements," said Matt Sheeler, partner at Wipley, during a high-level presentation of the audit results. The auditors said the city's timeliness in filing the audit met the comptroller's deadlines.

Findings and internal-control notes

- TIF reporting: Auditors reported a repeat finding: the tax-increment financing (TIF) report was not completed on time. The audit recommends correcting the timing so statutory and reporting obligations are met.
- Library segregation of duties: Auditors noted a small segregation-of-duties weakness at the library; the point was described as consistent with prior years and sized to the small office operation.

Pensions, OPEB and investments

- Pension liabilities improved overall from $16.8 million to $15.7 million year over year. Auditors attributed much of the improvement to investment returns across the plans.
- Plan investments totaled about $98 million, the majority held in IMRF (around $75 million). IMRF funding for the city was reported at about 97.68% for the year; the plan peaked at roughly 114% in 2022, reflecting strong investment performance that year.
- Police pension funding improved to roughly 67% in 2025.
- Post-employment benefit (OPEB) liabilities decreased from about $7.6 million to $6.4 million after an actuarial study and related valuation.

Utilities and cash-flow notes

Auditors presented a seven-year comparison for water, sewer and electric operations. Operating revenues were roughly $16.4 million and roughly flat over the study period. The audit noted a $2.8 million swing in net results for utilities driven by the city's pension expense from IMRF assumptions: the previous year the IMRF plan produced a net $1.6 million income to the utility funds; this year it produced $1.2 million of expense, a $2.8 million swing.

Sheeler urged council attention to the audit's cash-flow statement: from a cash perspective the utilities had $512,000 net cash income from operations in the most recent year versus $882,000 in the prior year, a point the auditor said "flushes away some of the impacts" of actuarial timing differences.

Next steps and context

Auditors recommended correcting the TIF reporting timing and addressing the small segregation issue at the library. The audit includes detailed schedules and actuarial assumptions that influence pension and OPEB valuations; council members asked clarifying questions about investment volatility and the calendar-year measurement of plan returns.

The audit will be filed with the comptroller as required; city staff and the auditor said they will follow up on the repeat finding and continue to present actuarial and budget information as the levy and budget season proceeds.