At some point, the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors are going to have to submit to the will of the residents of the county or offer a compelling argument to explain why it won’t.
The sale of OCH Regional Medical Center in October is expected to net $30.5 million for the county. Since the sale closed, supervisors have discussed a number of options for how to allocate the funds, with proposed plans so far ranging from dividing some or all of the money among the five supervisor districts for discretionary projects to investing the money in a trust or endowment.
On Monday, Starkville architect Shelton Jones approached the board during its meeting with a petition that included 150 signatures calling on the board to place all of the sale proceeds in a trust or endowment, which could then be invested to produce dividends.
Previously, the Greater Starkville Development Partnership passed a resolution encouraging the Board of Supervisors to place all of the funds from the sale into a trust or endowment.
The desire to invest the entirety of these funds has broad support. In fact, the only opposition to the idea we have heard is from certain members of the Board of Supervisors itself.
District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer remains committed to dividing all of the funds among the five districts to address current or short-term needs, mainly paving projects.
District 1 Supervisor Ben Carver and District 4 Supervisor Patti Little both support placing all proceeds into a trust.
District 5 Supervisor Joe Williams hasn’t gone on the record on the issue.
Board President Board Marvell Howard seems to be in agreement that at least a portion of the proceeds should be endowed.
“Some” is not all, however.
It appears as though some members of the board are trying to thread the needle on the issue, which we believe is a short-sighted approach. Every dollar spent today is a dollar that can’t be put to work through investments to maximize the benefits of the sale.
We agree with The Partnership and the petitioners that every dollar from the hospital sale should be put into a fund with strict controls.
We base that belief not on speculation, but from a proven example. Lowndes County put the $30 million it received from the sale of its county hospital into a trust fund in 2006. In 2013, the board received permission from the state via special legislation to begin investing those funds in the market. In 10 years, the county has withdrawn $10 million in investment profit while growing the fund by another $10 million. It’s proven to be one of those rare situations where you can eat your cake and have it, too.
Investing all of the proceeds from OCH should produce comparable results. Once you begin to whittle dollars off the top, the smaller the investment and the smaller the dividends.
All that’s really required of the Oktibbeha supervisors is patience. Supervisors should resist the urge for instant gratification and embrace the long-term benefits of placing all of these funds into a trust/endowment.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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