Published: October 21, 2009 09:04 pm      

Committee plans to discuss interest issues

By RORYE O’CONNOR

rorye.oconnor@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — The Jefferson County Highway Committee wants to work with the Jefferson County Fiscal Committee to discuss better ways to gather interest on motor fuel tax funds.

At the regular monthly meeting Wednesday evening, the committee rehashed the issue of the insufficient interest being gathered on the funds.

“Last month, we discussed the problems with monies and interest not received due to dormant accounts,” Highway Committee Chairman Jim Laird said.

The issue pertains to two county checking accounts containing monies from motor fuel tax receipts, which a state auditor with the Illinois Department of Transportation flagged due to their not gathering adequate amounts of interest. The accounts, which contain a total balance of $881,000, only gathered $61.21 combined interest through July, as compared to $12,891.28 at the same time last year.

The county treasurer, Debbie Marlow, is the only person authorized by state law to handle the funds, which includes balance inquiries. The committee discussed the possibility of making an electronic balance inquiry possible.

“We can’t state to let that money stand idle,” Laird said. “We need electronic banking so it can be looked at. ... We can’t continue like we’re doing.”

The highway committee wishes to bring up the issue of the checking accounts with the fiscal committee, but it will not happen at this evening’s fiscal committee meeting, because a meeting agenda must be posted 48 hours in advance, according to the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

In other business:

The Scheller Road Project is nearly complete. An existing wooden bridge over the abandoned Illinois Central railroad north of Scheller was removed, and an asphalt roadway was built over the former railway. This road will bear improvements for the region because school buses and larger vehicles will be able to drive over it, whereas on the wooden bridge they had to drive around, said county engineer Steve Schnake. The Jefferson County Highway Committee will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday at 2 p.m. to celebrate the official opening of the roadway, and;

The committee made a motion to approve a bid by Allied Construction Services for posts and hardware for special sign projects.