ver 5.4xxx .ini problem

My host has upgraded my site to a new server and a new php version - 5.4.27. Since then I am seeing a subtle change in that my individual php.ini files in each of my folders do not seem to be involved anymore. Previously I had the default timezone setting in those .ini files to effect the change to the proper zone. Now when I do a phpinfo I see that the time zone is now set to UTC, not good when I am in New York. Now I may not understand how the .ini file gets read and applied but I thought I had to replicate my settings in a small .ini file in each of my folders where my php code ran from. Those files are still there of course but they seem to be worthless. Is this a result of the new version?