The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors is poised to make its first withdrawal from the hospital trust fund since 2021.
President Trip Hairston told The Dispatch Wednesday afternoon the board will likely vote to withdraw slightly more than $1 million at its 9 a.m. Friday meeting in the courthouse boardroom.
The trust was established with $30 million the county received from the sale of the county hospital in 2006. In 2013 state law was changed to allow the county to invest a certain amount of the money in stocks and bonds.
Each budget year the county may make a withdrawal of up to 3% of the value of the investments, but not if the balance goes down.
That’s exactly what happened after a “terrible” year in 2022, County Administrator Jay Fisher said on Wednesday. The tide turned over the course of Fiscal Year 2023, however.
“We are planning to take out $1.1 million,” Fisher said. “The fund made about $1.3 million. The $1.1 million is the maximum we would be allowed to take out.”
The fund started at around $35 million in FY 2023, and finished the year “just shy of $38 million,” Fisher said.
Hairston said the money will likely go toward paying down the debt from construction of the Lowndes County Sportsplex.
In April 2022 the supervisors approved an approximately $12 million plan to build eight baseball/softball fields, concession/restroom areas, an entry gate, picnic areas and a playground.
Fisher said the county planned on using the hospital money, when possible, to pay down the debt. During leaner years when the county can’t withdraw from the trust fund, it makes the debt payments out of the general fund.
The county pulled out of the general fund in FY 2023, Fisher said.
Fisher said the $1.1 million will be plenty to make the next year’s bond payments, likely with a little left over.
Payments are under $1 million per year now due to the way the debt was structured, Fisher explained.
“It’s a graduated 12-year scale,” Fisher said. “We set it up so the first three years are lower payments and then they will go up. We have some debt that will roll off around 2026, and (the sportsplex debt payments) will go up after that.”
In the past money from the hospital trust has been used for capital improvement projects, including the health department building on Lehmberg Road, the Justice Court building on Martin Luther King Drive and the E-911 Center next to the courthouse.
There isn’t a “firm” opening date for the sportsplex as of right now, Hairston said.
“We were looking at doing a tournament before this fall,” Hairston said. “The grass is not seeded completely yet, and I don’t want to get behind on that. You mess up that grass and you’re just constantly fighting it.”
The county is still planning a soft opening in the near future, Hairston said.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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