Refunds issued to Bloomfield Township residents

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP — As a few road paving projects have been completed under budget, some Bloomfield Township homeowners in three special assessment districts in the Kirkway and Bloomfield Village area will be receiving partial refunds. The refunds were unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees at the March 9 meeting.

“These projects are very expensive, so anytime we can give that money back to them, under budget — making sure we do it right and save the money — this is a great thing,” Trustee Chris Kolinski said.

The special assessment districts include SAD 425 in the Kirkway area, and SADs 426 and 427 in Bloomfield Village.

Property owners in SAD 425 will receive a refund of $4,518.41 per full unit of benefit, or $2,259.20 per half unit. The original budget for this SAD was $4,073,635.80, and the actual cost came in at $3,478,692.44. The total amount they are able to refund for this SAD is $533,172.68.

Property owners in SAD 426 will receive a refund of $8,971.01. The original budget was $8,073,593.28, however, the actual cost was $6,316,678.95. They have a $1,756,914.32 surplus that they are refunding.

Property owners in SAD 427 will receive a refund of $11,487.05. The original budget was $10,691,917.38 and the actual amount spent was $8,092,048.38, creating a $2,599,869 surplus.

If a homeowner paid their assessment in full, they will receive a refund check within the next few weeks. If they are paying in installments, refunds will be applied to the 2026 and 2027 installments.

A total of 9.12 miles of new road were constructed through these projects. To complete these projects, the roadway was pulverized, and 4 inches of new asphalt was installed, as well as new curbs and gutters.

“The way these SADs work, we create an estimate of what the project is going to cost — that includes construction, engineering, administration and financing — and that estimate is what the assessment is based on when we approve the SAD,” township Treasurer Michael Schostak said. “We look at what the actual costs were on the construction, the engineering, financing, legal and anything that we collected in terms of assessments — above what we needed, we return to the residents.”

He said that the money is being refunded because it is the residents’ money that they put in for the SAD, and it is not the township’s intention to collect a profit.

“Our intention is to coordinate these projects on behalf of the residents, and so at the end of the project, we do accounting and see where we’re at,” Schostak said.