Morgan County Treasurer Jenny Geirnaeirt is taking action regarding a state banking system in which it currently has a large amount of funding.
Geirnaeirt told county commissioners on Monday she’s pulling about $9-million out of Illinois Funds, a program administered by the state treasurer’s office that allows municipalities to pool excess money.
Geirnaeirt says she’s moving the money out due to a Securities and Exchange Commission rule change over the summer.
“Basically, the state is changing how Illinois Funds is working. It essentially should be used as a savings account, but we are really using it as a checking account, and will no longer be able to do that effective February 1st,” says Geirnaeirt.
“And the fees that will be associated with those accounts, we believe will be a little more costly to the county, and we also would rather, because of that, reinvest and put the money in more of our local community banks as opposed to Illinois Funds.”
Geirnaeirt says when Illinois Funds began, interest rates were good, but that’s since changed.
“Rates overall are not good anywhere, but Illinois Funds are even lower than what we can get at our local community banks, and I think it’s more important if we can invest in our local community. So, we’ll be making those changes very soon,” she says.
Jacksonville’s treasurer told us in August the city had two Illinois Funds accounts with a minimal amount of money in those accounts.