Top Grosse Pointe Woods finance official retires

GROSSE POINTE WOODS — After nearly three decades in the world of municipal finance, Grosse Pointe Woods Treasurer/Comptroller Shawn Murphy is trading spreadsheets for some time in the sun.

Shortly after Murphy, 60, retires Feb. 23, she and her husband will be heading to Florida for an extended vacation.

“I decided it was time,” Murphy said of her decision to join her husband in retirement. “This job is very demanding. I want to spend more time with my family.”

Murphy started working for the Woods in July 2012, becoming the deputy comptroller in 2014 and the treasurer-comptroller in 2020. She previously worked in the accounting departments of Rochester Hills and Bloomfield Hills. Murphy has an accounting degree from Walsh College.

“I like doing what I’m doing,” Murphy said. “I’m a numbers person.”

She said she enjoyed the challenges that came with municipal accounting. Woods officials say Murphy did an exceptional job. City Administrator Frank Schulte said Murphy’s attention to detail earned the city an audit without a single deficiency this year for the 2022 to 2023 fiscal year, something that’s very rare.

“She’s going to be hard to replace,” Schulte said. “Shawn is an outstanding person, very intelligent, very knowledgeable about her position, and a relentless hard worker.”

For the last 50 years, the Woods has received the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting — often referred to as the CAFR — from the Government Finance Officers Association, something Murphy continued during her tenure. The CAFR recognition was established in 1945 to recognize state and local governmental entities whose financial reports go beyond minimum requirements and are more transparent and easier to understand for people without a financial background. The Woods is one of the cities with the longest record of applying for, and earning, this distinction; Murphy said the city applied recently for what would be its 51st CAFR honor for the 2022 to 2023 audit.

Besides continuing the Woods’ CAFR tradition, Murphy was tasked when she started with launching a new one: participating in the GFOA’s Popular Annual Financial Reporting Awards Program, which involves creating a brochure-like annual document that summarizes the city’s financial data in a succinct, comprehensible manner. The Woods has earned a PAFR award for the last 10 years for its financial summary report.

Murphy, who has an adult son and daughter, is looking forward to doing more traveling as well as spending more time with her family. She said she’ll miss her job, but she’ll miss her co-workers even more.

“The people that work here are great. … It will be hard leaving everyone,” Murphy said.

Mayor Arthur Bryant said they would also “miss her terribly.”

“After moving into the top (finance) position she is in now, she has found many things that we had to correct, and we couldn’t have done that without her,” Bryant said. “She’s just a marvelous individual and knows her subject so well. She’s just done a tremendous job being our comptroller/treasurer.”