Macomb County has hired its former auditor to study the county’s Finance Department to improve its operations in part due to delayed audits last year, and to help complete this year’s fiscal examination on time.

The county Board of Commissioners at its meeting Thursday approved two contracts with Plante Moran worth a total of $214,000 for a study and potential recommendations for changes to finance operations, and to assist with this year’s audit of its finances to ensure timely completion.

Plante Moran will be paid $75,000 to visit the finance offices and interact with staff over the next three months and produce a report.

County administration official Vicki Wolber called it a “deep dive.”

“They will come in here with staff and look at various roles and titles within the Finance Department,” Wolber told the board Finance, Audit and Budget Committee earlier this month. “They will look at all of the processes within the Finance Department … how the department operates in every way, shape and form, how it interacts with other departments, how it interacts with us (Executive Office), the board. … They will do some comparisons with some other (governmental) finance departments in the area.”

Any recommendations would be designed to determine “where we need to make improvements … to strengthen the Finance Department as a whole,” said Wolber, who is special projects advisor for County Executive Mark Hackel and a former deputy county executive and Emergency Management and Communications director.

There have been no accusations of missing money.

The county’s audit of the 2023 finances by UHY was completed five months late last November due to county finance staffers’ delays in getting financial reports to auditors. Typically, the audit for the prior year is provided by the end of June, with reports delivered weeks before then. Last year, UHY didn’t even get the finalized financial data from the county until late August, a firm representative said.

The delay placed the county in jeopardy of receiving bi-monthly state revenue-sharing payments on time. Officials gained deadline extensions so revenue sharing was not delayed.

The primary culprits for the delay in document preparation appeared to be the conversion to new finance software provided by Workday and understaffing, but officials want a closer look.

For this year’s audit of last year’s financial data, Plante Moran will be paid $139,000 to assist the existing staff in preparing documents and the system for the audit in order to ensure it’s done on time this year.

“This will help us complete it on a timely basis, give some relief to staff with the workload they all have,” Wolber said at the meeting.

Plante Moran performed the county’s audit for 10 years but in 2022 was underbid by UHY, which is being paid $851,000 to conduct five annual audits through 2027. A third firm submitted a lower bid, but county finance officials said it lacked experience in municipal audits.

The audit of 2023 federal funds, known as the “single audit,” still isn’t completed but should be done within three months, Wolber added.

Some of the blame for the delinquent audits has been placed on the department being short-staffed as it has been difficult at times to find qualified candidates for open positions, Wolber said in an interview. There are currently five vacancies, including former deputy director Steve Adair, who left last fall, among a 30-person staff.

The study comes at a time of change in the department. In addition to the new finance software and Adair’s departure, Finance Director Stephen Smigiel plans to retire this year, and Wolber said officials are in the process of looking for a replacement.

“We’re trying to recruit for a new director and have the deputy director position open as well,” she said.

Wolber said staffers may be over-worked, especially during audit preparations when they also must attend to routine duties.

She also added there has been “a lot of changes in rules and guidance in finance” in recent years, and it can be a challenge to keep up.

In a related matter, UHY was hired in a unanimous vote to complete the county’s annual Comprehensive Financial Report that, like the audit, is required by state law but includes more data. The agreement is for three years, with the cost not to exceed $60,000 the first year.

“It is a very common practice that auditing firms also prepare these statements for their clients,” Wolber said. The reports “have changed (over the years) and are extremely comprehensive and detailed and technical.”

In the past, the county’s annual report has been prepared by the Finance Department and/or director. The 245-page 2023 report and reports dating back to 2004 can be found at macombgov.org/departments/finance-department/financial-transparency/annual-comprehensive-financial.

The report “enables taxpayers to evaluate the proper use of public funds” and “is used extensively by bond rating agencies, underwriters and bondholders to assess the investment risk of a government,” Washtenaw County finance officials say of the report required in Michigan.

The measures were approved 13-0 at the committee meeting and at the full board meeting Thursday in the county Administration Building in Mount Clemens.

Multiple board members as well as Treasurer Larry Rocca, through Deputy Treasurer Ralph “Skip” Maccarone, expressed support for the measures in brief comments at the committee meeting.

Board Chair Joe Sabatini (R-Macomb Township) said in an interview that the actions are part of an overall effort by the board and administration to improve the budget process so commissioners can receive the annual spending guide sooner. Now is a good time to address it in light of the departures and recent issues, he said. Budget hearings typically begin in late September each year, and the board seeks to finalize each budget by Dec. 1.

“It moves fast,” he said of the budget process. “We’re trying to extend that so we have more time. Everyone recognizes that. It’s also about staff; it lessens the load on staff.”

The county’s total 2025 budget, including state and federal dollars, is about $1.1 billion. The general fund, which is supported by local tax dollars, is nearly $350 million.

Sabatini said the Plante Moran study is a precursor to a plan next year for an internal-controls audit of finances.

In regard to UHY now also doing the Comprehensive report, he said the time is right to turn it over from internal staff primarily because Smigiel — who is leaving — and Adair — who’s gone — did it. It’s also rare for a government unit to not have the auditor also complete the report.

“We had the institutional knowledge and manpower to do it,” Sabatini said. “We would do it and it made sense because it saved money.”

But now, “It’s in our best interest to contract with UHY,” he said.

Finance Committee Chair Phil Kraft (R-Chesterfield Township) said he has been meeting weekly with Wolber regarding issues in finance.

“We’re trying to work through things,” Kraft said. “We’re trying to make things better for us at the board, the Executive Office and the finance team. I think these four (agenda) items here help us do that and get us on the right track.”

Maccarone said his office, which is the “custodian” of the hundreds of millions of dollars that go though county government each year, deals with the Finance Department “on a daily basis,” and Rocca and his staff believe the study will help resolve some issues.

“The implementation of Workday, as with any major undertaking for financial reporting, has had issues that need to be addressed,” he said. “There’s been nothing that has created any concern in terms of the validity of receipts or payments made by the county, but the tracking mechanisms need some refinement to assure the normal course of business requirements of the treasurer.

“There are inquiries that have to be made that involve additional work hours, and there are reporting forms that need review periodically as they are being update so we can assure accuracy. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes issues that we look at, and we have to do additional checks to make sure that everything is as it appears.”