The Delta County Board on Tuesday approved Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 deficit elimination plans — some of which were acknowledged as accounting errors — for the county’s Community Action, Drug Enforcement, Road Patrol and Sanitary Landfill funds.

ESCANABA – The Delta County Board on Tuesday approved Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 deficit elimination plans for the county’s Community Action, Drug Enforcement, Road Patrol and Sanitary Landfill funds.

According to the board’s agenda, the Michigan Department of Treasury received Delta County’s FY 2024 audit, which identified four funds that were closed in a deficit: Road Patrol, Community Action, Sanitary Landfill and Drug Enforcement — more commonly referred to as the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team (UPSET) fund.

The board’s deficit elimination plan for all funds and certified resolutions — detailing the deficit amounts and strategies to eliminate each deficit — are mandated to be submitted to the Michigan Department of Treasury.

The deficit amounts reported in the plans include the Road Patrol fund at a $164,698 deficit; Community Action, $855; Sanitary Landfill, $321; and UPSET, $33,716. According to County Administrator Emily DeSalvo, these deficits have been rectified.

The Delta County Deficit Elimination Plan for FY 2024, as publicly available on the county’s website, includes fund-specific elimination strategies for each fund found to have been in a deficit. The agenda states the cause of the deficit for the Road Patrol fund is “Increased personnel costs (overtime/benefits) and delayed reimbursement from state/federal grants.”

However, DeSalvo said she found a “transfer out that was happening from the Road Patrol fund into the UPSET fund.” The funds being transferred into the UPSET fund were not budgeted for. DeSalvo noted this occurred in FY 2025, as well.

“Those, again, are accounting errors — closeout errors — with the money being moved from the wrong funds into them,” DeSalvo said.

Both the Road Patrol and UPSET fund balances have been corrected for FY 2025, according to DeSalvo.

DeSalvo said it is her understanding that marijuana tax money was initially supposed to be allocated into the USPET fund, which did not end up happening — creating a deficit in the accounting entries.

“Every time when the books are closed, if there is not a balancing that’s done on the accounting end, there could be a deficit in that fund balance,” said DeSalvo. “If that’s not accounted for before the audit happens, what happens is that it gets reported as a deficit to the Department of Treasury for that fund balance.”

DeSalvo further explained, “Sometimes, it can be as easy as the accounting just didn’t get done to transfer the money that needed to be transferred that was budgeted for.”

Other times, expenses or revenue could have been put into the wrong fiscal year. According to DeSalvo, this is what happened with the Sanitary Landfill and Community Action funds.

She noted these deficits were already corrected by reallocating the correct revenue and expenditures when administration closed the books for FY 2025, which will be audited starting Monday.

In other news, the board:

– Appointed and reappointed positions on the Opioid Task Force’s board. The commissioners appointed Dayna Kapp as the Opioid Task Force’s Youth and Family Service Provider — a position previously held by Mike Snyder; and reappointed Dr. Mary Frances (Francie) Myrick to the Healthcare Community position; Steve Howes as Mental Health Provider; and Whitney Maloney in the Non-Profit and Community Groups position. The Treatment Provider position remains open.

– Forwarded the Equalization Department’s request to update and continue service agreements to all townships in Delta County. The individual agreements are recommended for a five-year term with an updated Appendix A Price List. The townships will review each contract before board approval occurs.

– Approved out of county travel reimbursement for Delta County commissioners attending Upper Peninsula Commission For Area Progress’ (UPCAP) Spring 2026 Upper Peninsula Association of County Commissioners Conference on May 14 and 15 at the Island Resort and Casino.

– Acknowledged information from the Finance Committee that was presented to the board on their observations in their review of budget trends and projections. While the agenda item was not discussed in great length, the agenda states there have been “hardships that have been created” due to the county’s statutory Operating Millage, which was created in 1976 with no further updates. The board and committee will further discuss whether Delta County voters should be asked to approve removing the Rollback and placing the millage back to its originally approved rate, which would mean an increase of .4696 mills ($.4696 per $1,000 of taxable value).

– Heard public comment from concerned community members claiming the Delta County Parks & Recreation Commission infringed on their second amendment rights by banning firearms and/or fireworks on park property. At the end of the meeting, Williams stated, “I believe that when we were discussing that, we were talking about fireworks. I think this is just a big mistake, but I will work to make sure to get it corrected.” She further stated she would ask to have the issue added to the Parks & Recreation Commission meeting agenda taking place today at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom at the Delta County Service Center, 2920 College Ave.

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Sophie Vogelmann can be reached at 906-786-2021 or svogelmann@dailypress.net.