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MACOMB TOWNSHIP — A fiscal-forward meeting of the Macomb Township Board of Trustees was held on the evening of June 12 with officials approving the upcoming year’s budget and a slew of other financial matters.
The fiscal year 2024-25 budget comes in with a nearly $190,000 increase to the fund balance, which is set to close out the coming fiscal year at over $31.3 million. The increase brings the township’s general fund balance to around 104%. With this surplus, township officials have made the decision to reduce tax rates while increasing spending on services and projects to bring the fund balance back down to 100%.
“Many communities are happy with a 50 or 60% fund balance,” Macomb Township Treasurer Leon Drolet said. “Macomb Township has a long tradition of maintaining a 100% fund balance in case of the worst-case scenario, a multiyear recession. In theory, we could maintain township operations for a year if we lost all revenue sources.”
Millage rates for general operation, police protection and parks and recreation have seen reductions to 0.6232 mills, 1.45 mills and 0.7469 mills from 0.6258 mills, 1.5 mills and 0.75 mills respectively. An upcoming millage referendum as part of the Aug. 6 primary election can also see the fire pension millage reduced completely with the renewal of the fire operating millage at 1.9 mills, the same rate as last year.
In the case of the police protection millage, the township was able to use its financial surplus to hire an additional sergeant for the township’s Macomb County Sheriff’s Office substation alongside reducing the tax rate.
“There may be some folks who look at what the board has been doing with budgets the last four years and wonder if it’s a violation of the laws of physics,” Drolet said at the meeting. “We’ve reduced taxes every year for the last four years, and yet have increased what we’re investing in our roads, our sidewalks, in our parks and recreation and our public safety. It’s not a violation of the laws of physics. It’s about prioritization. It’s also about additional revenues we’ve got from aggressively pursuing state and federal grants (and) also from very aggressive financial investments.”
Sidewalks and roadway projects are budgeted at $1.4 million and $6.4 million in expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year. Around $2 million will be spent on new improvements and additions for parks, and a new firefighter will join the Macomb Township Fire Department’s ranks.
“Our job is to reduce people’s taxes and improve their services when we get over 100% fund balance,” Drolet said.
However, some taxes are going up. The water and sewer commodity charges will go up to $4.65 and $4.49 per 748 gallons of water used (one unit) from $4.47 and $4.25 per unit.
Town square development ordinance
Trustees made another change to the township code of ordinances, this time changing the traditional neighborhood development ordinance governing construction around the township center.
“We have a zoning ordinance over the whole township, but the town center has a completely different set of standards,”said Josh Bocks, the township’s planning director. “This was developed in the late 1990s and really implemented in the early 2000s. Not much development took off. There have been some minor tweaks over the years, but we haven’t taken over a year to really revamp this ordinance in a way that can really make it more friendly for our town center to develop but also keep the same look and feel we see out there today.”
The amendment is the recent one made as part of a review of the township’s code of ordinances. Other ordinances amended this year include the nuisance noise and temporary sign ordinances.
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