Harrison Township board receives, files treasurer’s report

HARRISON TOWNSHIP — On June 23, the Harrison Township Board of Trustees voted to receive and file the township treasurer’s 2024 annual report in a 5-0 vote.

Trustees Dean Olgiati and David Bratto were excused for the meeting.

Harrison Township Treasurer Lawrence Tomenello presented the item. He went through several sections of the township’s finances including taxes from school districts, banks and financial institutions.

He called it a “pretty good report.”

The presentation showed the township invested around $3.5 million in its general fund and earned interest of $173,903. Tomenello said sweep account activity came in at $6,900,000. The total amount of interest earned among all accounts is $810,568.

In 2024, the township levied $28,887,006.83 in school taxes, $7,246,925.51 in Macomb County taxes and $12,532,842.57 in local taxes with a total amount of taxes levied coming out to $48,666,774.71. Tomenello said the township collects nothing for general operations.

Tomenello said when he first joined the township in 2020, there were a number of special assessment districts that the township funded internally. The amount went from around $1.3 million in 2021 to $588,312.16 in 2024. Tomenello stated this is about two-thirds of the way to claiming the money back. According to documents, the SAD “burden” will continue through 2030.

Tomenello said they have two bonded special assessment districts with an outstanding principal balance of $839,160.45.

The general fund across the board, Tomenello said, was around $14,000,000.

Tomenello said they work with nine banks or financial institutions for investments, pensions, day-to-day checking and more. The main bank account is through JP Morgan Chase.

“In 2023, all JP Morgan accounts were converted to hybrid accounts,” Tomenello said. “Simply this means they are a combination of interest and service credits.”

The service credits are activated for a portion of the year, Tomenello said, and they activate them until they have enough credits to cover bank fees.

“Once the amount of the service credits that we need to cover all of our costs have been reached we go to complete interest-bearing accounts,” Tomenello said.

The township collects taxes from the L’Anse Creuse school district, Macomb Community College and the Macomb Intermediate School District, going at $4 per parcel. Tomenello said they use this money to collect, create and send bills out as well as to manage all the accounts.

The library is a part of the township charter and manages its own funds, but the treasurer’s office handles all their investments.

“We actively invested over $2 million in 2024 of library funds,” Tomenello said.

In 2023, they activated a sweep account for the general fund and in 2024 they changed the water and sewer fund to a sweep account. Tomenello said all of their working capital accounts are invested in sweep accounts.

Township Supervisor Kenneth Verkest said there was a lot of good news in the report.

“(I’m) certainly excited about the various income streams generated through the multiple investment methods,” Verkest said. “We appreciate the effort of the treasurer’s office to make our money work for us.”