Wayland City Treasurer Cheri Parrish earned high praise again from the auditor for her work on the city’s finances.

Peter Woldman, audior from Gabridge & Company of Grand Rapids, told members of the City Council Monday evening that, “Overall, Cheri’s doing a great job.” This follows the audit from two years ago when a different auditor said the city’s finances were in the best shape he’d seen while working with the city over 15 years.

Woldman said the city has an annual budget of about $11 million, with a fund balance of just over $2 million. He said the unrestricted fund balance, which can be sued for any expense that comes up, is at $820,677, or about 37% of the actual fund balance.

Woldman said what really impressed him most is that the City of Wayland is one of the very municipalities not running a deficit with its pension liability.

City Council members beamed at the news and Mayor Tim Bala, Jennifer Antel Lisa Banas and John Sloan took time to offer their gratitude to city staff.

“Ten years ago, when I sat through my first audit, it was not pretty,” Antel commented. “We had only a $6,000 fund balance.

“It’s nice to see a clean audit. This says a lot about our city staff.”

Bala added, “Eight years ago, when I became mayor, we had a fund balance of about $35,000. I even got a letter saying that this city could fail.”

Parrish came to Wayland in 2013 from Bangor after the abrupt resignation of Bhama Cairns.

PHOTO: City Treasurer Cheri Parrish asks a few questions of auditor Peter Woldman before the start of the City Council meeting.