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Auditors deliver clean 2025 opinion; single minor payroll reconciliation recommendation
Summary
Plymouth Township's auditors reported an unmodified (clean) opinion on the 2025 financial statements, noting steady revenues and improved pension/OPEB funding but flagging one isolated payroll cash-account reconciliation issue and recommending the township use the financial system's reconciliation module to close the gap.
Auditors for Plymouth Township presented the final 2025 financial statements at the council's July 7 workshop, issuing an unmodified (clean) opinion and identifying one isolated internal-control recommendation.
Chris Herr, partner at Melee, told council the audit produced a clean opinion, meaning in their view the statements were free of material misstatement and complied with GAAP and GASB standards. He said the auditors found no instances of material noncompliance and that the engagement had no scope limitations.
Herr said auditors identified one deficiency in a payroll cash account reconciliation that occurred because reconciliations were being performed in Excel and an item of activity had not been recorded in the books; he described the issue as isolated and not indicative of broader control failures. Herr recommended the township move the bank-reconciliation process into the financial system (the Edmonds module) to align reconciliations with system activity and reduce the chance of future disconnects.
The auditors also summarized plan funding and operating results: pension and OPEB plans improved in 2025 after strong investment returns, shifting some plans from underfunded to overfunded positions (auditors cited improvements such as the police plan moving to roughly 105% funded and nonuniform plans improving to about 112%). Governmental revenues were broadly flat from 2024 to 2025, with modest increases in real-estate taxes and intergovernmental grant receipts; auditors reported no new debt in 2025 and said long-term debt was reduced by roughly $400,000 in principal payments.
Herr highlighted a drop in the general fund balance (from about $17.7 million to roughly $10 million at the end of 2025) and explained the change was primarily driven by budgeted transfers into the community center and capital funds rather than operating shortfalls. When council asked about a target fund balance, Herr said the Government Finance Officers Association guidance of roughly three months of annual expenditures is a reasonable baseline and that Plymouth's roughly four-month reserve position is healthy.
Council members asked follow-up questions about the reconciliation recommendation and fund-balance targets; Herr said staff have already begun addressing the reconciliation issue and that moving the process into the finance system will reduce manual gaps.
The council did not take formal action at the workshop; the auditors said they would provide the full 110-page financial statements and the SAS 114 letter for council review.
