By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — At its meeting on July 8, the Independence Township Board of Trustees unanimously authorized the township Treasurer Paul Brown to seek bids for a third party external audit of REU (Residential Equivalency Unit) calculations for commercial properties as well as water connections with the findings presented to the board for consideration at a later meeting.
Brown explained to the board that over the past several years, there has been an issue happening every now and then with commercial properties paying less money for use of the township sewer system than the properties should be.
“For folks who are on the sewer system, one REU is what you pay quarterly for use of the sewer system, if you’re on it, within the township,” Brown said.
Brown also explained how REU calculations are done by the township. Originally, apartments in the township were paying .6 of an REU, however that changed in 2014.
“The township board had made a change where apartments used to pay .6 of an REU. This was based on Oakland County’s schedule that we go by although the board has the right to adjust from that schedule – that’s in our ordinances – and we changed it to one because our water study showed that apartments used the same amount of money as the average 1,200 or 1,300 square foot home in the township,” said Brown.
Brown then laid out some of the findings over the years starting around 2015 when he happened to come across an error that showed an apartment complex within the township that was hooked up to the township sewer system was still paying .6 of an REU, not the full REU.
“I started looking and we found a group of apartments, we fixed that issue which is likely an administrative error. So, we resolved that; we collected $110,000 or $120,000. Two years (and) they hadn’t paid the correct amounts and we had the right to go get that money. In fact, we had to go and collect that money because the law says we can’t give away free services that are in our enterprise funds. Water is an enterprise fund and sewer is an enterprise fund. We’re not allowed to give it away,” said Brown. “A couple years later, I found one where a car wash had been underpaying, so, this goes a way back and it’s not relegated to now or even eight years ago. For 30 years, a car wash paid the wrong amount, underpaid. And we were able to go back and get six years worth of money from that car wash.”
As recently as last year, Brown found what seemed to be another error when looking at the utility bills of Monarch Grove, a senior living facility in the township.
“They, in fact, are not paying the right amount. They should be paying, I think, about 111 REUs and a little change and they were in the system at 50. So, it’s more than double. The totals of that from a sewer usage standpoint are about $6,000 a quarter for eight quarters so somewhere around $50,000,” Brown said.
Brown also added that he had found a home on the township water system that has not been paying for usage of that water system for four years.
Because of this ongoing issue, Brown requested the board authorize him to seek bids for an external audit REUs on commercial properties and additional water connections in the township as well as establish a way for the township to know if there are homes receiving services that are not currently paying.
“My concern is, how do we know there aren’t more. I have no clue how we would figure that out,” Brown said. “I’m trying to figure out how big the number is that I’m supposed to go and collect. Because that’s my responsibility and to make sure we’re collecting those, because if we don’t collect the right amount, everyone in the system ends up paying more.”